


Lights So Bright

by kototyph



Series: put your money where your mouth is 'verse [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Atrociously Twee, Christmas, Christmas Cards, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Party, Christmas Presents, Christmas Tree, Established Relationship, Family, Ficlet Collection, M/M, New England, No Drama, Really Gratuitous Amounts of Christmas, Romance, Slice of Life, Snow, Thanksgiving, friends - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-24
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-01 14:20:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 21,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8627878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kototyph/pseuds/kototyph
Summary: “Well then,” Dean drawls, holding the card and its glittery woodland creatures at arm’s length. “I guess it’s finally the season.”





	1. Thanksgiving

**Author's Note:**

> A series of loosely-connected ficlets (~200-1000 words) based on [these prompts](http://kiu22.tumblr.com/post/37140678059/christmas-otp-challenge), following Dean and Castiel’s first holiday season together in the Shut Up 'verse. I don’t know if anyone’s twigged onto this yet, but I love Christmas
> 
> Check for updates / excuses / etc. on my [tumblr](http://kototyph.tumblr.com/)
> 
> For cherrypicking or avoidance purposes: chapters 11, 17, and 18 are explicit; more possibly in future updates

The third and final game of the day is Steelers versus the Colts, eight-thirty eastern time. Indianapolis is down by seven points when the second quarter ends and Ellen says, “One of you go get me another beer, the dog’s on my feet.”

“Not me,” Bobby mumbles, hat tipped low over his eyes. “I finally got this damn thing to recline all the way.”

“Ditto,” Jody says, holding her own beer balanced on her stomach. “Time to get new chairs, Ellen.”

Ellen points at them with her empty can. “Excuse me, are you insulting my lay-z-boys? Because there’s plenty of room on the floor for ingrates.”

“They’re pieces of crap and you know it—”

Dean’s bottle of water has gone tepid, anyway, so he sighs loudly from his place on the couch. “I guess I could get up, stretch my legs. Anybody else?”

“You might want to check with hubby on that one,” Jody says, smirking behind her Pabst.

“What?” Dean looks down at the crown of Castiel’s head, which along with one of Ellen’s throw pillows has migrated to about mid-chest on him. “Cas?”

“He’s out, honey,” Ellen says. “He’s been out.”

“First quarter. _Clunk,_ ” adds Bobby, who snored his way through the entire Cowboys game earlier.

Dean hasn’t actually heard a peep out of Cas since the pies were declared cool enough to eat, which in this house meant cool enough to provoke a small melee in the kitchen. He cranes his head forward to check, and sure enough, Castiel has his eyes closed and his head turned into the couch back. Dean can feel the slow, measured rhythm of his breathing through the pillow, the heat of his body through denim and cotton, and there’s no reaction when Dean runs a hand up his arm.

“Maybe you two should head back to Bobby’s for the night,” Ellen says. “ _After_ you grab me another beer.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Dean says, biting his lip against what he knows would be a godawfully dopey smile. He  drops his chin on Castiel’s shoulder to ask, “Hey, Cas. Wanna head out?”

Still no reaction, so he follows it up with a tap to the nose. Castiel immediately wrinkles it, and Dean laughs and wraps both arms around him, squeezing tight.

“Cas—”

“No,” Castiel grumbles.

“No?”

“ _No_ ,” Castiel confirms, and burrows deeper into Dean’s hold.

“You like football that much?” Dean asks him, and that finally brings him around enough to stop and turn his head. He blinks hazily at Dean, forehead creasing.

“... no?” he says.

“Is this the same guy who was talking my ear off about tax reform over the cranberry sauce?” Ellen wants to know. “You sound like a cranky toddler. Go home!”

She’s just ribbing him, the same as she would Dean or Sam, but Castiel stiffens immediately. “I’m awake,” he says, eyes flicking around the room. “Sorry.”

He starts to sit up, but Dean holds on and puts his lips to his ear. “Hey, it’s cool,” he says. “If you’re that tired, do you want to leave?”

He isn’t going to pretend he doesn’t know the answer has been “yes, please, immediately” for most of the day, but Castiel is a stubborn bastard. “I’m fine,” he says, jaw set, wooden in the cradle of Dean’s body.

Under the blast of a holiday toy commerical, Dean says softly, “It’s been a long day. You’re sure?”

Castiel is quiet for a moment, hands coming to rest on top of Dean’s where they splay across his chest. “I don’t want be any trouble,” he says, just as softly.

Right. “Yeah, I think Cas and I are going to knock off,” Dean says, looking over to Ellen. “If you can muddle on without us.”

Ellen snorts and waves her empty beer. “How will we _ever_ survive?”

“Take the dog home, too,” Bobby says. “Rumsfeld! Wake up, boy.”

It takes nearly as long to coax Castiel off the couch as it does the old hounddog, but eventually Dean has a leash in one hand and the other at the small of his husband’s back, pushing him towards the door. He’s trying to get his feet in his boots without letting go of either, so he misses Ellen coming up beside them until she’s saying, “It was great to finally meet you, kiddo,” and pulling Castiel into a tight hug.

Castiel’s eyes immediately go wide, and he stares over her shoulder at Dean in a mute plea for something— help, or interference. Dean just smiles at him; it might not have been the smoothest set of introductions from Castiel’s perspective, but Dean is pretty satisfied with the results.

“Don’t be strangers, you two!” Jody says from her chair. Castiel hesitantly brings his arms up to return the hug, and Ellen gives him a few hard thumps on the back.

“Hey, it’s just as easy to drive from Queens to Boston as Boston to Queens,” Dean says to Jody. “ _You_ don’t be strangers, it can’t be me buying all the gas.”

“Especially in that piece of shit Chevy,” Jody agrees, and Dean and Bobby both turn gimlet eyes on her. “What? I call them like I see them.”

“Oh! Leftovers,” Ellen says, and releases Castiel just as suddenly as she’d grabbed him. Castiel stands frozen where she leaves him, looking completely bewildered by the whole experience. It only adds to Dean’s private conviction that Castiel hasn’t encountered that much physical affection in his life, and the equally private decision to provide as much as Cas will let him to make up for it.

“We’ve got plenty of stuffing and gravy, still, and the jello salad,” Ellen says, disappearing into the kitchen. “Oh, and the extra pie. Don’t need that around here.”

“I don’t know, El, Jo seemed a little attached to that pie,” Bobby drawls.

“My daughter is in college and still disappeared after dinner to go catch monsters on her game thing,” she replies tartly. “She gets no say if she can’t spend two minutes talking to family.”

“Speaking of,” Jody says, dragging herself out of the recliner. She gets to her feet and crosses the room to the stairway. “Girls! Dean and Castiel are leaving, are you going to say goodbye?”

Somewhere upstairs, a door opens and music pours out: the bad, moody kind Dean remembers very clearly from his own days in a Baba O’Riley-style teenage wasteland. _“What?”_ Jo yells.

“Dean and Cas are leaving! Come on!”

Castiel gets a few more collateral hugs as Dean gets swarmed, first by Jo and then Annie. Jo does object to the removal of the pecan pie, so it’s just pumpkin, apple, and two slices of Ellen’s jealously-guarded French Silk that make it into the tote on Dean’s arm, along with the other leftovers. By the time Ellen’s finished loading them up, his shoulder is about to fall off and Rumsfeld’s gone back to sleep on the foyer floor. It takes ten more minutes and a turkey wing before the dog, Dean and Castiel are finally out the door and into the frigid night, shuffling carefully down the steep steps to the private alley behind the Roadhouse.

Castiel doesn’t speak until they’ve emerged onto the damp street and turn north, and when he does it’s low and hesitant. “That was...”

“It was great,” Dean says, and has to laugh a little at the suspicious look Castiel turns on him. “Cas, c’mon. You think they’d just go along with whoever I brought home and be fine with it?”

“Yes,” Castiel says seriously. “That is exactly what I think.”

Dean laughs in earnest this time, and pulls Castiel’s scarf out of the man’s coat pocket to drape it around his neck. Cas forgets stuff like that, and the chilly wind is making Dean’s cheeks sting. “Well, I can tell you from painful past experience that that’s a tough crowd to please. You did good, Cas.”

He bumps Castiel’s shoulder with his as he says it, and Castiel leans into it, into him. It just makes sense to slide an arm around him at that point, although with Rumsfeld pressing into his legs and half the turkey day table on his other arm, it makes walking tricky. Dean still pulls him in close, and Castiel sighs deeply.

The streets in this part of Queens are narrow, lined with big trees and little houses. There’s no parking for miles, so they’ll walk the half-hour it takes to get from the Roadhouse to Bobby’s place. Ellen and Bobby prop up opposite ends of Murray Hill, fighting the gentrification creeping up from the south by keeping 5¢ wings on the menu at the bar and letting the junkyard’s landscaping get gnarlier every year, respectively. Jody’s in a neighborhood closer to Little Neck— Annie’s still in school and the public district there is better.

“Do you really think it went well?” Castiel says wistfully as they wait for a light, the cross street bursting with the striped awnings of old Italian bistros and new, garishly neon Korean script.

Dean thinks he might need to take a more analytical track with this, given Castiel’s marked preference for cerebral over social interactions. “Okay, first of all— Ellen hugs? Hard to come by unless you’ve broken a bone recently. Two: Jo’s a pretty suspicious character, too, and she, uh. Used to have a big crush on me. She’s hated pretty much everyone I’ve ever brought home, Lisa included. But you got a hug. Three: Bobby’s definitely going to make you do his taxes, thanks to that dinner speech.”

Castiel groans and Dean has to lean over and kiss the side of his head, because that part was kind of terrible. “You let me babble.”

“I let you lead us in a very informative discussion about commercial tax law, which will have direct benefits for the two small business owners who were at the table,” Dean corrects him, and Castiel makes another sound of profound suffering.

There’s a brief break from walking while Rumsfeld strays into the grassy strip between the street and sidewalk and Dean has the occasion to ask, “What the hell have you been _eating_ , dog?” as he does the necessaries. They make the rest of the walk home in tired but companionable silence, and the sleeting rain is kind enough to wait until they turn onto Bobby’s street.

“I’m going to dry Rum off down here,” Dean says once he pulls up the garage door, icy trickles sliding down the back of his neck and making him shudder. “You want to watch anything? Doesn’t have to be the game.”

“I’m tired,” Castiel mumbles, drifting towards the door to the house while trying to unbutton the trench with clumsy fingers. He never got his gloves out. “I think I’d rather sleep.”

“Yeah,” Dean says. “Okay. See you upstairs.”

Rumsfeld gets fed and watered, and Dean checks the rest of the house, locks the door to the garage and cranks up the thermostat a few degrees before heading upstairs. When he gets to the end of the hall, the bathroom light is on and the sink is wet. Castiel’s toothbrush is out on the counter, their toothpaste laid next to it, mangled like always.

“How friggin’ hard is it to just roll from the end?” Dean mutters, grabbing his own toothbrush. “C’mon, sweetheart, work with me here.”

Bobby’s put the two of them up in Dean’s old room, the one he shared with Sam until they hit those really rocky years and the kid moved into the basement. No word to Bobby or Dean about it, just, one day sleeping down there with the spiders, and somehow even angrier after Dean hauled all those old rugs and leftover paint down so it wasn’t so goddamn grim. Dean’s still not used to seeing a full queen-sized bed in here, when there’s still tape from his posters and scratches from Sam’s desk on the otherwise bare walls. He leans in the doorway, brushing his teeth, and Castiel, down to socks and boxers on the bed, looks up from frowning intently at the floor.

“Do you think we offended Ellen, leaving so early?” he asks.

Dean groans and goes to spit.

“Dean?” Castiel calls after him, sounding worried.

“Jus’ a seh!” Dean calls back, and mutters, “Oh mah Gah.”

When he comes back to the room, pulling the door closed behind him, Castiel is still sitting ramrod-straight on the edge of the bed, anxiety in every line of his body. “Dean—”

“Cas,” Dean says, maybe a little less than patiently. He peels out of his shirt and sweater and drapes them over the chair in the corner, next to the rickety dresser. “I’m serious. It’ll probably take another visit or two before you really click, but as far as first meet-ups go? Honestly? This was everything I could have hoped for.”

“Do you mean that?” Castiel asks guardedly. “Because I—”

“ _Yes,_ ” Dean says, starting on the buttons of his jeans. “Really. They loved you. They think you’re great.” He dumps them on the chair, too, then hits the lights. He kneels on the mattress and crawls towards Castiel with a ridiculous amount of protest from the creaking springs. “Why aren’t you under the covers? It’s freezing.”

“I’m aware. I was waiting for you,” Castiel grumbles, and Dean throws an arm around his waist and drags him up the bed until he can maneuver them both under the worn-soft sheets and old comforter. Cas goes willingly, wiggling close until they’re facing each other with Dean’s head on his arm, the other arm curled around Dean’s shoulders. His fingers brush idly through Dean’s hair.

“You are the cutest fucking thing,” Dean tells him. He has his face buried shamelessly in Castiel’s neck, soaking in his warmth, the way he doesn’t mind Dean’s cold hands splayed over his skin. “And you worry too much. Cas, Jesus. Even if they hated you— which they _don’t—_ it’d be fine.”

“I’m fairly sure it wouldn’t,” Castiel demurs, but at least he says it lightly.

“It would. We’d make it work.” Dean smiles in the dark. “I love you. You’re stuck with me.”

“I see.” A thumb rubs gently behind his ear, and Castiel’s heel presses into the back of his knee. When he speaks, it’s breathed against Dean’s forehead. “How fortunate I love you too.”

Hearing it is still a quiet, blooming thrill, and Dean has to tilt his head up and kiss him at least once for that. Twice for coming down to New York with Dean, even though he was so nervous. Three times for the tax talk, which Dean thinks might put the junkyard in the black for the first time in a decade.

“I liked them too,” Castiel confesses, barely above a whisper. “I really did.”

“Knew you would,” Dean whispers back. “Now you just gotta meet Sam.”

“ _Dean,"_ Castiel says plaintively, and Dean muffles his laughter in his bare shoulder.


	2. 1. Christmas cards

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note on updates from now on: I'm going to try to put up one prompt/chapter (~200-1000 words) a day until December 25. The operative word here is TRY. I'll be writing fast and probably without betas, and I'm so, so unbelievely bad at keeping deadlines. So bad. Please keep your expectations at reasonably low levels for me, folks

The first one arrives right on Thursday, when the winter rain is pelting the car at damn near a thirty-degree angle and Dean feels like he might lose an arm in the short time it takes him to roll down the window, grab for the mailbox latch, and hastily shovel the jumble of junk mail into the car with them.

“Where the hell do they even come from?” he asks, trying to shield his face from the stinging drops while he cranks the Impala’s window shut as fast as he can. “I swear I didn’t bring all this with me, and somehow I have a hard time picturing you shopping at— is that Toys-R-Us?”

“I find catalogs quite interesting,” Castiel says, already sorting through pile with a jeweler’s eye. “Even that one. Besides, I’m still looking for your gift.”

Dean already has a half-dozen things squirreled away in various places around the house— mostly stupid stuff, like a mug that made Cas smile at the gas station and a set of nice notebooks. He wonders a little guiltily if this is something they should have talked about.

“Was I not supposed to tell you that?” Castiel asks, with a flyer for something called a kringle tucked under his chin.

“Nah.” Dean smiles at him as he takes his foot off the break and starts to coast down the driveway. “It’s all good. Whatever you want to get me, even if it’s from Toys-R-Us.”

“I think that’s unlikely,” Castiel says dryly. “But I assure you, it will be perfect.” He frowns at the junk mail in his lap like he’ll know what to blame if it isn’t.

Dean puts his eyes back on the road but lays an arm across the seat, hand conveniently at just the right height to ruffle Castiel’s hair. “Yeah?”

“Yes,” Castiel says firmly, tipping his head into Dean’s palm.

What little accumulation they had from November’s flurries has succumbed to the numbing rain, along with most of the courtyard’s still-wild landscaping. Despite the paint and siding work Dean has done since summer, the house looms with the grey, foreboding air of something out of a gothic novel as they turn into the courtyard. Bare branches sway in gusts from the ocean, and skeletal ivies cling to the wood and creep over windowsills.

“We really need to get some lights up once the weather breaks,” Dean says, looking at the roof as the garage door grinds slowly upwards.

“Lights?”

“Christmas lights. Something for the trees, too— any hardware stores in that pile?”

Castiel examines the spill of glossy paper across the seat and his legs, some of it falling into the footwell as they pull up in the dark stall. “Probably.”

“Save ‘em for me, then. How do you feel about inflatable snowmen?”

“Hateful,” Castiel says with a dour look, and Dean laughs as he cuts the engine.

The mail gets dumped next to Wednesday’s equally large stack, on top of Sunday’s scattered papers— more ad copy than news, the inversion getting more pronounced the closer they get to the holidays. Given a lazy morning, Dean tends to spend hours pulling the Times and Globe apart to check the placement of campaigns the company works on— a habit that leaves sections strewn over flat surfaces all over the rooms downstairs and does not endear him to the other reader in the house.

“Split pea?” Castiel asks hopefully as they cross the kitchen together, Dean carrying Castiel’s bulging briefcase, his own sleek messenger bag slung over Cas’ shoulder. “Do we have the… peas? And things?”

There are definitely dried peas in one of the pantries, and probably a ham hock around here somewhere. “Maybe. You think you can wait a couple hours to eat?” Dean says, already detouring to check.

“Yes,” Castiel says immediately, brightening. Dean holds out the briefcase and he takes it, disappearing into the hallway towards the stairs. Nabokov appears like a fat furry genie to thread her claws into the calf of Dean’s slacks while he’s trying to untie his shoes, and there’s a brief detour to feed her. Kibble dispensed, Dean heads for the butler’s pantry, which is bigger than some bedrooms he’s had over the years and smells persistently like ancient cinnamon. He grabs an apron on his way in.

Half an hour or so later, while he’s waiting for the soup to thicken, Dean wanders over to the table and starts to pick through the mess. It’s things and places he’s never heard of, the Smithsonian and Edmund’s Scientifics, art supplies and homegoods and a Great Courses class listing that could double as a phone book. Down at the bottom is a fairly sizable Cabela’s mag, complete with Santa flyfishing on the cover, and slotted between the pages is a white envelope.

“Here we go,” Dean says, tugging it out. He’s so tired of just credit offers and these damn catalogs, and the card looks hand-addressed.

The sender is J. Mills, the postmark from New York two days ago. The paper feels cheap but that’s Jody all over, the kind of woman who has so many people on her list she buys a 50-pack at Walgreens and just signs her name below the generic greeting inside. Dean knows, he’s seen her do it.

She also has a tendency to pick the most eye-searing cards she can find, something Dean forgets until he rips the envelope open with a finger and is almost blinded by hot pink reindeer. “Jesus Christ,” he mutters. He flips it open in self-defense and glitter flakes off in droves.

 _SANTA’S SLEIGH IS COMING YOUR WAY!_ Rudolph and friends shout at him. _Merry Christmas to my two favorite newlyweds,_ Jody adds. _Don’t tell my niece._

“Well, then,” Dean drawls, holding the card and its glittery woodland creatures at arm’s length. “I guess it’s finally the season.”

He props it up on the otherwise bare counter next to the refrigerator, because what few magnets they have are holding up the township recycling schedule and a notice from Dr. Fitzgerald that the cat is due for teeth-cleaning. It looks kind of lonely, sitting there by itself, but Dean knows he can probably count on a few people at work and some clients to send more. Not family, probably; Bobby doesn’t believe in polite gestures like greeting cards, and Sam wouldn’t know one if it bit him on the ass.

“Dean?” Castiel’s head appears in the doorway. He’s changed into sweatpants and a loose tee shirt. “Do you need help?”

Dean points at the waiting pile of carrots and onions next to the cutting board on the kitchen island. “All yours.”

The soup is good, and reheats well over the next two or three miserably rainy days. Castiel doesn’t say anything about the card, though Dean still winces every time it catches his eye, and over the next week he’s able to add few more— a homemade card from Charlie, an overtly Christian monograph from Missouri, and a couple of mass-printed and virtually identical season’s greetings from companies around town.

He’s propping up a card from Benny’s mom when he sees something else lying alongside the small collection. It’s one of those photo slips with text across the bottom, a portrait of a family Dean doesn’t recognize, though all four of them have dark hair and blue eyes. His suspicions are confirmed when he leans over and reads, _Wishing you all God’s blessings this Christmas and New Year. — The Miltons._

“My brother,” Castiel says when Dean points it out. They’re cooking together again, this time Dean’s fallback fill ‘er up meal of spaghetti and meatballs. Castiel is in charge of arranging frozen dinner rolls on a baking sheet to keep him away from the sauce, and leaves them next to the stove to come look. “The oldest. He has two daughters, though Hannah is the only one we keep in regular contact with. She’s the taller girl, there.”

“Cute,” Dean comments, and Castiel raises an eyebrow at him— probably because the card sitting right next to it is from Anna and pointedly addressed to Castiel only. Yeah, Dean’s not touching that one with a thirty nine and a half foot pole.

The stack of catalogs on the den’s map table is reaching dangerously unstable heights by the end of the week, and Dean imposes what Castiel informs him is an untenable, tyrannical standard of an inch or less of junk on what’s still their main eating surface, even though they now have stools in the kitchen and tables in the dining and breakfast rooms. Castiel is sorting idly from the floor while Dean works via laptop, his head close to Dean’s elbow, when something sticking out of an untouched pile catches his eye.

“What’s this?” he asks, reaching past Castiel to snag it and hold it out so they can both see.

It seems to be a postcard, the front of it a shiny photograph of a flamingo with a forked branch tied to its head and a clown nose on its beak. The back reads, _Little bro! Little sis told me you got Elvis-married. Would have renewed my license if you told me— still have the fringed jacket from Reno. Let’s catch up soon._

“Guessing this is not the same brother,” Dean says as Castiel stares at it. They’ve been married three months and he knows there are four siblings out there he hasn’t met, but that’s about it.

“No,” Castiel says slowly. “This is likely from Gabriel.”

“And he… likes flamingos?”

“The last I heard, he was the lead singer in a Jimmy Buffet tribute band in Pensacola.”

Dean blinks. “Pensacola?”

“We may need to leave temporarily,” Castiel continues, tilting his head to look back at him. “Just until he forgets where we live. Are you still paying for your apartment?”

“The lease expired last month,” Dean says, trying to gauge Castiel’s sincerity. “He’s not… he can’t be that bad. Really?”

Castiel looks vaguely apologetic, and completely serious. “I think I’ll go go pack a bag for us,” he says. “Just in case.”


	3. 2. Getting out the decorations

The first inkling Dean has that Castiel didn’t enjoy his Friday night commute is the single shoe in the middle of the hallway leading from the mudroom, all but afloat in a puddle of rainwater.

“Oh,” Dean says, closing the door to the garage. “Oh, no. Cas?”

Although they carpool more often than not, especially in the evenings Dean sometimes has events and client calls that pull him away from the office and out of range for Castiel to get a ride home. The man got around perfectly well before Dean and the Impala rode into his life, as he often likes to remind him, but there are some days the T, a long bus ride, and an extended walk just aren’t the best option. Dean checks his phone, but there’s no missed call, even though he’d mentioned the forecast and offered to skip his last call. Stubborn ass.

It’s past nine and dark as pitch outside, rain and tiny hailstones breaking against the windows as Dean collects the shoe and continues down the hall. He finds the other shoe, leather saturated to the point of shapelessness, up against the baseboards in the kitchen like it was kicked off with vigor. He follows the trail of wet into the smaller butcher’s pantry and to pants, a shirt, an undershirt, and two socks draped over the huge copper sinks. The tie droops from a faucet; the trenchcoat, sodden and dripping sullenly, is on a big metal hook Dean sincerely hopes was reserved for cookware.

Damp footprints cross the floor back into the kitchen, and there’s a canister of hot cocoa mix out, an empty mug and saucepan waiting. There wouldn’t have been any milk to make it, Dean knows, because he has a replacement gallon for the one he finished that morning in the grocery bag on his hip.

“Aw, sweetheart,” Dean sighs, and sets it on the counter.

He goes upstairs with two mugs steaming in his hands, anticipating a surly welcome from either the upstairs office or from under several layers of bedding in the master suite. The office is empty, though, and the bedroom vacant except for Nabokov and Rosie’s calico sprawl across the sheets. The cats blink sleepily at him as he settles the mugs on the already-crowded bedside table, and Rosie accepts the stroke he gives her with a yawn and flexing paws. She’s the last kitten standing, the rest of them safely rehoused with friends before Halloween, and she’s a bit of a spoiled brat.

“I don’t suppose you’ve seen my husband?” he asks her, tickling her chin. “About six feet, soaking wet, probably calling me all kinds of names?”

Nabokov gets laboriously to her feet and steps all over her daughter on her way to the lap Dean’s just made. Dean stands back up before she gets there, but scoops her into his arms and letting her knead him with her sharp little claws while he makes another slow circuit of the upstairs rooms. “Cas?”

No Cas in the bathroom, second through fifth bedrooms, other bathrooms, dumbwaiter, laundry chutes, sitting room, or the weird and dusty passage behind the sitting room that’s open to the formal dining room on the first floor. No Cas in the dining room. No Cas in the breakfast room. No Cas in the den, the library, the parlor, the billards room, the gun room, or the drafty hall where the cow-roasting fireplace lives.

Back upstairs in the master bedroom, Dean sets Nabokov back in the sheets and, after a second, crouches to check under the bed.

“Right, that’s fucking ridiculous,” he mutters, letting the bedskirt drop back down. “Cas!”

Dean’s in the broad hallway that connects the smaller bedrooms to the sitting room and main suite when he feels it, a subtle draft of colder air. He slowly turns in place, looking up and down, and sees Rosie crouched next to the door to what Dean thinks is a linen closet. She meows piteously when she sees him looking, reaching under the door to scratch at the floor inside.

When Dean opens it, he sees exactly the same dusty towels and haphazard collection of bedding he expected, but he also sees a crack in the corner that proves to be the edge of another door, painted the same color as the wall. He gives it a long, wary look, then a tentative push, and it eases open to reveal a set of ascending stairs.

“Huh,” he says.

Rosie immediately makes a run for it, and Dean grabs her before she gets to the first tread. “Hold up. If I see a lamppost or a dude with goat legs, you and I are locking this door and barricading it shut,” he tells her as she wiggles in protest, and braves the first few steps. “Cas?”

Theoretically, Dean is aware that his crazy house has attics, probably a couple, and big ones at that. Too much space under its steep gables and dramatic rooflines to think otherwise. Somehow, though, he was picturing something a little less finished, a little more full of pink insulation and exposed support beams. What he sees instead is smooth wood and acutely angled walls, windows in odd places, plaster ceilings flaking off in patches where the damp has seeped in and softened them. Dim yellow bulbs on long chains illuminate a jumble of old furniture, even more badly aged than the stuff they’ve been trying to clean out downstairs, and more goddamned cardboard boxes. The swaying bulbs light the way to the northern corner, where Castiel sits cross-legged on the floor and elbow deep in a wooden chest, yellowed newspaper fountaining out around him and the floor in a spreading heap. He’s wearing a towel around his shoulders, and a Yankees sweatshirt of Dean’s that never leaves the house for fear of mob violence.

“It’s like this place never ends _,_ ” Dean says, gazing around him in amazement.

Castiel lifts his head with an impatient look. “ _There_ you are,” he says, waving him over. “Come here, I found Aunt Amara’s Christmas things.” He immediately refocuses on the chest.

And there’s Dean’s surly welcome. He spends long enough just standing there grinning at Cas that the man looks up again, and straightens with a scowl.

“What?” he asks peevishly.

“Hold on a sec,” Dean says, and goes to get the cocoa.

“It’s barely warm,” Castiel comments when Dean gets back, but he cradles it in both hands and sips while pointing out the various treasures he’s uncovered— wreaths so brittle they dissolve in a firm grip, old, enormous bows made of stiff organza and real silk, glass ornaments with fabric rosettes gone dull with time. Rosie insinuates herself into the process, and the two of them work to keep her away from ancient tinsel and shiny metal ornament hooks while they continue to excavate.

There’s a hundred strings of electric lights with funny tulip-shaped bulbs and crumbling insulation that make Dean say, “Not unless you want to burn the house down with us in it,” when Castiel picks them up. That leads to Castiel asking when he’s going to get them new ones, then, which leads to Castiel shifting from bare foot to bare foot on the cold garage cement while Dean pops the trunk to reveal an admittedly over the top number of bags full of classic white Christmas lights. That in turn demands more cocoa. The night ends very agreeably on the awful corduroy couch, Castiel forgiving him for being right about the weather and wedging himself between Dean’s legs, the better to trap him when he starts to fall asleep.

“We need a tree,” Dean mumbles, more than halfway there himself. “To put the ornaments on.”

“There’s a tree in the attic, too,” Castiel says on a yawn. “An artificial one. It’s quite large, from what I remember.”

“Mmhm,” Dean says, head dropping back against the armrest.

“Of course, I was a child at the time,” Castiel murmurs. His thumb brushes Dean’s collarbone, his throat. “I’m sure it’s smaller in reality.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even though the size difference is yuge and they're not even the same archtectural type (chateau versus beach mansion), I'm mostly just picturing [the Biltmore Estate](http://randwulf.com/hogwarts/biltmore.html) when I think about the house


	4. 3. Getting the Christmas tree

“Holy shit, no,” Dean says from end of the hallway. “No. _Hell_ no. Put it back.”

Castiel, red-faced with the effort of supporting the tree— no, the tree _top,_ just the upper half of the apparently enormous fake fucking Christmas tree, easily twelve feet tall and significantly wider than the door it just exited— looks back at the attic steps, and then at Dean. “I don’t know if I can,” he admits.

Dean helps him lay it along the wall when it doesn’t quite clear the ceiling, and then pulls him back towards the bedroom and into the ensuite. Dean had still been blissfully half-asleep, only barely curious as to where Castiel had wandered off to this early on a Saturday morning, when the sound of a human being and a hundred pounds of ancestral mock fir falling out of the attic had brought him bolt upright and scared out of his mind. Castiel immediately yelling, _“I’m fine! Ow,”_ had not helped.

“What if we leave it at just this piece?” Castiel asks, leaning against the sink while Dean carefully dabs at his bleeding elbow. “Ow. We could prop it up, somehow.”

“The base is too narrow. That thing is supposed to slot into a pole or something,” Dean says. He swabs one more time, and then grabs the bandaid box from the sink. “We could stick it in the ground, but short of that, I can’t think of anything would make it stable enough. And do you really want to have to haul it all the way downstairs, and then all the way back up again?”

“I suppose not,” Castiel allows grudgingly, and Dean rewards him by smoothing on the biggest bandage in the box. “Is that really necessary?”

“Absolutely,” Dean says, checking the edges. “There’s a farm on the drive in from Boston. Why don’t we stop by one night next week and pick up a tree?”

“I think I’d prefer an artificial tree,” Castiel says, and pulls his arm away to rub at the bandage himself. “It seems cruel to cut one down, just for this. And it’s less work to maintain, correct?”

“I mean, they both fall under ‘some assembly required,’” Dean says, reaching past him to pop open the medicine cabinet. “Maybe we shouldn’t get one this year. At least, not a big one. Obviously there’s plenty of room, just not in the rooms we’ve finished. I can probably get a mini-tree with the lights already on for thirty bucks.”

Castiel’s face doesn’t fall, exactly. He just looks suddenly and strangely agreeable, like he didn’t really expect to get what he wanted. Like he’s used to it. “Ah. That makes sense.”

Dean tries to backpeddle. “Are you sure? We can try to clear out some space in the den, rearrange the furniture. Or wait until the floor’s finished in the library? That’s only a few more weeks.”

“No, you’re right.” Castiel smiles faintly and pushes away from the sink, moving past Dean and into the bedroom. “We’ll need something more manageable. We’re still working on so many things.”

Dean can’t really argue with that, but he wants to. “Cas, we can make it work. What about the greenhouse room? There’s nothing in there yet, and it's out of the way of the worst of it.”

But Castiel just gives him a confused look over his shoulder. “The winter garden? Half of it is dead.”

What Dean really wants to know is how he ended up living in a house with a _winter garden,_ even a half-dead one. He’ll settle for buying out the whole holiday section at Walmart, if that’s what Castiel actually wants. “Look, Cas—”

“Dean,” Castiel says with some exasperation, and as Dean follows him into the bedroom he turns away to start making the bed. “I have something in mind I think will work.”

“Oh. You do?” It's not that Dean doesn't trust him, it’s just that he knows the only two furnishings in the whole house Castiel had purchased himself are the terrible couch and the equally terrible cookie jar shaped like a bumblebee.

“I do,” Castiel confirms. “Are you going to help me with this?”

“I would, but I was going to use it again,” Dean says, and despite Castiel protesting that it’s _ten,_ Dean, they have things to do, he flops facedown onto the rumpled bedding and stays there. Because their bed has the same gravitation pull as some black holes, before Dean falls asleep again he’s been joined by both cats, coffee, the book Castiel’s reading about how bad finance is, the backup book explaining how good finance is, and Castiel himself.

“Thought you had things to do,” Dean mumbles, reaching for him.

“As it happens, I can do a few of them from here,” Castiel says, and appropriates his shoulder as a bookrest.

A day later, Castiel brings home a Norfolk pine in a pot covered in red foil and positions it carefully next to the growing card collection on the kitchen counter. It comes with a few tiny plastic ornaments strung here and there, and a perfunctory gold star tied to the top. It looks so much like Charlie Brown’s miserable twig of a tree Dean could cry.

“There,” Castiel says, staring down at it. “That looks festive.”

“Goddamn it,” Dean sighs, and Castiel turns to glare at him. “No, no, it’s great. We should keep it there, and, uh.”

“And?”

“And you need to help me move auntie’s tree downstairs,” Dean says, because that thing is making him depressed just looking at it. “Let’s go.”

It doesn’t turn out to be as simple as that, of course. The top half of the tree, which they still haven’t moved from the upstairs hallway, is actually the top third— because, surprise, the tree comes in five pieces. _Five of them,_ each one bulkier and heavier than the last. When the two of them finally wrestle the pieces out of the attic and down the stairs behind the kitchen (there was no way they’d make it down the spiraling staircase), the tree fits together like some kind of three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle from hell built entirely out of stabbing plastic pine needles and spite. Dean had put on Christmas music to try and lend the exercise some holiday spirit, but thinks what he's actually doing is giving himself carol-triggered PTSD, “It’s a Marshmallow World in the Winter” blaring cheerily while the tree does its best to kill them.

“I hate your aunt,” he grunts, trying to force two metal joints together near the trunk of the monster tree while holding the top two tiers steady with one arm. “I hate her so much, fuck, what the fuck is this _bullshit.”_

“Yes, so did most people,” Castiel tells him, lending his bodyweight to the process. “Is this helping?”

The joints pop out and the tree, Dean, and Castiel go down in a heap.

"No," Dean pants. "It was not." He tries to roll over, finds himself mostly pinned by the base, and just gives in. "I’m... I'm going to lay here for a second."

“Seconded,” Castiel says, buried in branches next to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Castiel's books ([x](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0553447238/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0553447238&linkCode=as2&tag=finantimes-21)) ([x](https://www.amazon.com/Money-Changes-Everything-Civilization-Possible/dp/0691143781))  
> 2\. [It's a Marshmallow World](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lPw9hkk3II)  
> 3\. Don't use Norfolk pines for your Christmas tree. It's just not what nature intended.


	5. 4. Shopping for and/or wrapping gifts

Lisa and Ben pick them up in the very small hours of the morning, when misting sleet blows like a fog over the house and Castiel can barely get his eyes open enough to be maneuvered into his coat.

“ _Stop_ , I can do it,” he says the third time in a row he’s unable to find and link his own zipper, and Dean raises his hands and leaves him to it while he goes to answer the door.

Lisa’s puffy coat and fur-trimmed hood are zipped and buttoned to the utmost, leaving just the tired squint of her eyes visible. Ben is excited to the point of perpetual frenetic motion, launching himself at Dean with a running tally of everything he’s going to do and see in New York and then yanking off his boots so he can go tell Castiel the same thing.

“Why did I agree to this?” she says with a bleary look at Dean. “Why, Dean. Why.”

Dean smiles sympathetically and hands her a granola bar. “Hell if I know. You brought the Yukon?”

“No, I brought the _Camaro_ ,” she says, sarcasm somewhat tempered by a huge yawn. “The ice is bad. We nearly slid into the ocean twice on the way here.”

“It should be easier once we get on the highway,” Dean says, just as Ben drags Castiel into the foyer carrying two thermoses of coffee and his coat still undone. “Thank God,” Lisa says when he produces a third thermos from a pocket, grabbing for it. “Dean, you’re driving.”

She passes out in the front seat while Castiel and Ben continue their conversation under the rumble of the engine, Ben high and excited, Castiel gravely attentive. Dean tunes in to one of the two stations going all-out on Christmas around the bay area, just in time to get Johnny Mathis saying _“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas....”_ and concentrates on the drive. As predicted, it does get easier as they get away from the coast. The sleet is just rain by the time they hit Hartford, and a watery, blue-grey dawn spills into the sky as Dean skims across the 678 bridge into Queens.

Bobby is up and has more coffee ready, and Ellen comes bearing McDonald’s breakfast sandwiches when she pulls in behind them a few minutes later. Jo and Ben enthuse over pocket monsters while they all wait for Jody and her new partner, a Minnesotan transplant who Jody’s told them is nearly as excited as Ben to see the Lord and Taylor Christmas window. Castiel seems easier around them, maybe because Ben is there to break the ice and Ellen immediately turns to Lisa, eyebrow raised over her coffee cup, and says, “So. The dentist?”

Lisa puts her face in her arms and the whole table bursts out laughing, and then the doorbell rings and they’re off.

The plan, as proposed by Ellen over Thanksgiving, is to spend the morning in the Queens Center to get the serious shopping out of the way, go back to the house to grab lunch, then head into the city to hit as many of the holiday landmarks and Christmas markets of Manhattan as possible. The timing part of the plan falls apart before they even get down to Elmhurst; Ellen floors it through a light Dean and Jody get caught at and then they can’t find parking spaces within three city blocks of each other, Ben dutifully holding Dean’s phone up like a Ham radio while Ellen swears then apologizes multiple times, Lisa keeping tabs on Jody through her own phone. Dean gives up on the lower levels and circles up, up, up to the top of the parking garage.

 _“Let’s meet up at Macy’s?”_ Jody suggests, lost somewhere in the lots below them.

Except that she never specified a floor, Ellen somehow heard J.C. Penny’s, and they never quite manage to meet up in the middle— too many people, too loud and frenzied. They do find Jody and her partner Donna mostly by chance, and together pry Annie kicking and screaming out of a nearby Hollister. Dean keeps Ben from running off in the direction of the Lego Store with both hands and the promise of a cinnabun, then almost loses his husband to the first bookstore they come across.

“I’ll just be—” Castiel shouts over the noise, pointing at the Barnes and Noble and adjoining cafe, like it isn’t also bursting at the seams with families and strollers and, yikes, live music.

“No hiding, we shop like men,” Dean tells him sternly, and pulls him back into the fray.

They eventually end up in the Barnes and Noble anyway— and the Lego Store, and Hollister, Macy’s and J.C. Penny’s and everything in between. The two cops in the group are diverted by a fancy candy store and Lisa steers Annie into a Victoria’s Secret down on the first level, leaving Dean, Castiel and Ben take the higher ground at the L.L. Bean, where Ben takes a deep breath and relays verbatim everything on Lisa’s Christmas list. It’s mostly warm sweaters and good socks, which clearly baffles her son. It isn’t until the girls in blue have rejoined them and Castiel has been co-opted to go check out electronics with his mom that Ben delivers _Castiel’s_ list, which is mostly good books and warm socks. By the expression on his face, Ben has given up understanding the adults in his life.

“Jeez, kid, I hope they’re paying you a commission,” Dean says wryly.

Ben’s not done. “An’ you have to make sure it’s the fifth edition, not the other ones. The fifth one’s got better graphs. Can I have a cinnabun yet?”

“Would you look at that,” Dean says, spotting the sign two floors below them. “I think it’s cinnamon roll time.” And if Dean delivers him to Lisa with an incredibly sticky face and white frosting all up his sleeves, Ben’s more than earned it.

Eventually, like wreckage following the currents, they all wash up in the sitting space between the Cinnabon and an Applebee’s. Surprisingly, Bobby is sitting in one of the massage chairs just outside, two bags and a big gift-wrapped box next to him. “I have no idea where those two are,” he says about Ellen and Jo. “Lost me three steps into this hell. Merry fudging Christmas.”

While Lisa and Jody lean over their phones to try to make contact, Dean polishes off a McMuffin he found in his pocket and lets Castiel buy him more coffee from the Starbucks kiosk. Dean also finds out that Donna is even more irrepressibly bubbly than his first impression suggested, and that the Mall of America would kick Queen Center’s ass. “It’s got a roller coaster inside, ya know,” she says brightly. “And an aquarium! You can pet the stingrays! Nothing like that here.”

“What the heck!” Lisa says, pointing suddenly, and Dean looks up and sees Jo and Ellen pointing back and laughing at them from a table inside of the Applebee’s.

That’s lunch sorted, though they and all the bags have to cram into a booth meant for six. Dean manfully takes the inside seat, which has the delightfully claustrophobic side benefit of forcing Castiel to sit almost in his lap. It also means he only has his left hand to eat with, but he complains enough that Castiel rolls his eyes and starts feeding him French fries by hand, so Dean’s still going to count that in the win category.

None of them, not even Jo— who can and does give New York cabbies a run for their money— wants to drive into Manhattan on a December weekend. The whole crowd drops their stuff at Bobby’s and walks down to the Flushing station to take the 7 line instead, popping out on Fifth Avenue and immediately hitting a human wall around the best of the department store windows.

“It’ll be better once the sun sets, anyway,” Lisa says, ruffling Ben’s hair. “Let’s go see the tree, honey.”

As they walk back past the famous public library, Ben running on ahead and Bobby trudging behind, Castiel’s cold fingers finds his sleeve; then his wrist; then his hand, and thread themselves between his own fingers.

“Forgot your gloves again?” Dean asks archly, tucking their hands deep into his pocket.

Castiel is looking up at the decorations on the storefronts they pass, lights and wreaths and curling trumpets. “I thought I’d put them in this coat. I truly did.”

Dean smiles, squeezing his hand. “Sounds like you need more gloves.” There were three pairs in the shopping bags in Bobby’s living room.

Castiel smiles at a display of toy trains, tracks spiralling up and around a castle made of candy canes. “I suppose it does.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now might be a good time to mention my extensive collection of spn/Christmas playlists  
> [](https://8tracks.com/kototyph/gaudete)[](https://8tracks.com/kototyph/dean-s-kickass-christmas-tape)[](https://8tracks.com/kototyph/gabriel-s-godawful-christmas-mix)[](https://8tracks.com/kototyph/christmas-time-to-say-i-love-you)[](https://8tracks.com/kototyph/stanford-christmas)[.]()  
> 


	6. 5. Decorating the tree

“I’m going to need a bigger ladder,” Dean says.

He’d be flat on the floor if the hearth wasn’t there, so instead he’s sprawled across the fireplace’s eight foot shelf, one foot on the floor and his head brushing Castiel’s thigh. Castiel is sitting back on his hands and staring at the tree, their tree; he radiates quiet delight the way the tiny lights gleam in the otherwise dark room.

“Or a big fucking hook,” Dean continues, because he doesn’t want to ruin the mood or anything here but looking at a job half-done is giving him hives. He’d run out of rungs about five feet shy of the top, and the final string of light waits forlornly draped over the paint tray.

“Shhh,” Castiel stays, laying a hand on his chest. “Just look.”

Dean closes his eyes instead, stretching a little against ache in his back. They’d finally gotten the tree up around ten, which probably makes it near midnight now. They’d had to drag the unspeakably heavy assembly to a series of successively higher-ceilinged rooms when it became clear just how massive this thing was going to be, and ended up east wing hall. It’s a good room for this, or it will be: the long windows reflect the lights like bright constellations in the black, seamless sky-sea outside.

“Dean,” Castiel chides, and when he opens his eyes Castiel’s fingers drift up his collar to his chin.

“Big ass ladder,” Dean says unrepentantly. “Or you’re going to need wings.”

“I’ll take wings,” Castiel says, and tilts Dean’s head back to kiss him, just warmth and breath.

“Seriously, how the hell are we going to get up there?” Dean mumbles against his lips, lifting a hand to his face. Castiel turns to kiss his palm, then back to his mouth with more intent. Dean is all about that, and is sliding his hand behind Castiel’s head and to urge him further down when the ready lips against his pull abruptly away.

“No,” Castiel says, squinting into the darkness. “Don’t even think about it.”

Dean stares at him, nonplussed. “What?”

“ _No,”_ Castiel repeats with more venom. “Don’t you dare.”

Dean cranes his neck up and sees, in the shadows under the tree, Nabokov posed with all possible feline innocence just outside the first ring of boughs.

“Absolutely not,” Castiel tells her, pointing towards the door.

From above their heads comes a long, mournful yowl. Dean’s head moves back in tandem with Castiel’s to see Rosie’s black and cream face peering down at them from just where the lights stop.

 _“Nnnroooow,”_ she complains.

“Ah, shit,” Dean says. “I’m going to need a bigger ladder _tonight_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [OHHHHHHHH MY GOD](https://www.facebook.com/artpost.me/videos/1368611986491391/)


	7. 6. Baking holiday treats

**From:** naomi.deville@talbotpartners.com  
**Sent:** Tuesday, December 06, 2016 1:05 PM  
**To:**  MA-Creative-All-DL@talbotpartners.com; MA-Finance-Accounting-Only-DL@talbotpartners.com; MA-Accounts-SP-All-DL@talbotpartners.com; MA-Production-DL@talbotpartners.com; MA-Media-Only-DL@talbotpartners.com  
**Cc:**  MA-Office-Managers-DL@talbotpartners.com  
**Subject:** Talbot Boston Holiday Party - Call for Support

Dear Boston team,

The holiday gala is just around the corner, and we have assembled an enthusiastic party planning team eager to transform Conference Room 1950 into a festive space next Friday afternoon.  You should have received an Outlook invitation (see attached), which we encourage you to share with your clients and close contacts outside the agency.

The partners plan to cover beverages, but we would appreciate your support in collecting decorations, baked goods, and other treats. One planned activity is a bake-off with prizes in multiple categories. Each office has a member on the planning committee and they have offered to track pledges up until close of business Tuesday, December 13. After this time, the committee will assess where we are and what more we will need to do.

Please feel free to reach out to myself or Inias with any questions.

Thank you,

Naomi

-

Naomi DeVille  
Front Office Manager, Talbot Partners  
46 Waltham Street 4th Floor  
Boston MA 02118  
p 617 555 5463  
f 617 555 5464

 **From:** charlene.bradbury@talbotpartners.com  
**Sent:** Tuesday, December 06, 2016 1:12 PM  
**To:** MA-Creative-ArtDesign-DL@talbotpartners.com; MA-Creative-Directors-DL@talbotpartners.com  
**Subject:** Fw: Talbot Boston Holiday Party - Call for Support

You can thank me any time for sacrificing my lunch break and any chance I had to try the new mac and cheese truck to go _party plan_ with _Naomi_.

Also, surprise! Creative’s in charge of baked goods. Again.

 **From:** dean.winchester@talbotpartners.com  
**Sent:** Tuesday, December 06, 2016 1:13 PM  
**To:** charlene.bradbury@talbotpartners.com  
**Cc:** MA-Creative-ArtDesign-DL@talbotpartners.com; MA-Creative-Directors-DL@talbotpartners.com  
**Subject:** Re: Fw: Talbot Boston Holiday Party - Call for Support

Not it.

\- DW

_Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone._

**From:** victor.henriksen@talbotpartners.com  
**Sent:** Tuesday, December 06, 2016 1:27 PM  
**To:** charlene.bradbury@talbotpartners.com; dean.winchester@talbotpartners.com  
**Cc:** MA-Creative-ArtDesign-DL@talbotpartners.com; MA-Creative-Directors-DL@talbotpartners.com  
**Subject:** Re: Re: Fw: Talbot Boston Holiday Party - Call for Support

Ha! You’re the only ‘it’ there is, Winchester, get cooking

 **From:** dean.winchester@talbotpartners.com  
**Sent:** Tuesday, December 06, 2016 1:29 PM  
**To:** charlene.bradbury@talbotpartners.com; victor.henriksen@talbotpartners.com  
**Cc:** MA-Creative-ArtDesign-DL@talbotpartners.com; MA-Creative-Directors-DL@talbotpartners.com  
**Subject:** Re: Re: Re: Fw: Talbot Boston Holiday Party - Call for Support

Come on, when did I become the patsy for this crap? It was one pie!

\- DW

_Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone._

**From:** benoit.lafitte@talbotpartners.com  
**Sent:** Tuesday, December 06, 2016 1:34 PM  
**To:** charlene.bradbury@talbotpartners.com; dean.winchester@talbotpartners.com; victor.henriksen@talbotpartners.com  
**Cc:** MA-Creative-ArtDesign-DL@talbotpartners.com; MA-Creative-Directors-DL@talbotpartners.com  
**Subject:** Re: Re: Re: Re: Fw: Talbot Boston Holiday Party - Call for Support

In the last month? Because there have definitely been more pies than that

 **From:** charlene.bradbury@talbotpartners.com  
**Sent:** Tuesday, December 06, 2016 1:35 PM  
**To:** dean.winchester@talbotpartners.com; victor.henriksen@talbotpartners.com; benoit.lafitte@talbotpartners.com  
**Cc:** MA-Creative-ArtDesign-DL@talbotpartners.com; MA-Creative-Directors-DL@talbotpartners.com  
**Subject:** Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Fw: Talbot Boston Holiday Party - Call for Support

Did I hallucinate the chocolate chip cookies last week, Mr. Undefeated Bake-Off Champion???

 **From:** charlene.bradbury@talbotpartners.com  
**Sent:** Tuesday, December 06, 2016 1:36 PM  
**To:** dean.winchester@talbotpartners.com; victor.henriksen@talbotpartners.com; benoit.lafitte@talbotpartners.com  
**Cc:** MA-Creative-ArtDesign-DL@talbotpartners.com; MA-Creative-Directors-DL@talbotpartners.com  
**Subject:** Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Fw: Talbot Boston Holiday Party - Call for Support

Two words: BANANA. BREAD.

 **From:** dean.winchester@talbotpartners.com  
**Sent:** Tuesday, December 06, 2016 1:41 PM  
**To:** charlene.bradbury@talbotpartners.com; victor.henriksen@talbotpartners.com; benoit.lafitte@talbotpartners.com  
**Cc:** MA-Creative-ArtDesign-DL@talbotpartners.com; MA-Creative-Directors-DL@talbotpartners.com  
**Subject:** Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Fw: Talbot Boston Holiday Party - Call for Support

Storebought, and obviously a mistake I am never repeating

\- DW

_Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone._

**From:** charlene.bradbury@talbotpartners.com  
**Sent:** Tuesday, December 06, 2016 1:42 PM  
**To:** victor.henriksen@talbotpartners.com; dean.winchester@talbotpartners.com; benoit.lafitte@talbotpartners.com  
**Cc:** MA-Creative-ArtDesign-DL@talbotpartners.com; MA-Creative-Directors-DL@talbotpartners.com  
**Subject:** Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Fw: Talbot Boston Holiday Party - Call for Support

There was even a loaf without nuts for Kevin because “they ran out of the normal ones” YOU LYING LIAR

 **From:** missouri.moseley@talbotpartners.com  
**Sent:** Tuesday, December 06, 2016 1:47 PM  
**To:** victor.henriksen@talbotpartners.com; dean.winchester@talbotpartners.com; benoit.lafitte@talbotpartners.com; charlene.bradbury@talbotpartners.com  
**Cc:** MA-Creative-ArtDesign-DL@talbotpartners.com; MA-Creative-Directors-DL@talbotpartners.com  
**Subject:** Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Fw: Talbot Boston Holiday Party - Call for Support

As much as I enjoy reading these emails and knowing they will be preserved on the company’s servers for years to come, with no expectation of privacy and subject to inspection, monitoring, evaluation, and other company uses at any time:

  1. Charlie, I know for a fact you had a noon deadline for the Marone proofs.
  2. Victor, Benny, you both have two o’clock calls I don’t see any evidence you’re getting ready for.
  3. Dean, that copy for Marone isn’t getting any younger, either. Also, you should do the gingersnaps with the cream cheese frosting again. Those are my favorite.



Thank you, 

Missouri

 **From:** castiel.milton@talbotpartners.com  
**Sent:** Tuesday, December 06, 2016 2:22 PM  
**To:** dean.winchester@talbotpartners.com  
**Subject:** Re: Talbot Boston Holiday Party - Call for Support  
**Attachment:** [Scanned_20161206].pdf

Dear Dean,

Hester informs me that Finance and Accounting has been selected to provide light snacks, and has specifically requested the finance team source cheese and crackers. If you don’t mind, I’d like to plan a trip to Shaw’s this weekend.

Balthazar additionally suggested in our staff meeting this afternoon that I use my position and privileges as your husband to influence your choice of baked goods for the party. I would normally refuse, but he and the rest of the team mentioned several desserts I had not heard of previously, and many of them sound intriguing. Please find attached our list with the specific varieties I am interested in highlighted.

Sincerely,

Castiel

-

Castiel Milton  
Assistant Controller of Finance, Talbot Partners  
46 Waltham Street 1st Floor  
Boston MA 02118  
p 617 555 5871  
f 617 555 5870

**From:** dean.winchester@talbotpartners.com  
**Sent:** Tuesday, December 06, 2016 2:39 PM  
**To:** castiel.milton@talbotpartners.com  
**Subject:** Re: Re: Talbot Boston Holiday Party - Call for Support

You’re lucky you’re so friggin cute

\- DW

_Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why Naomi DeVille? [Well](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcdQk7JBPzQ)


	8. 7. First snowfall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Broadly interpreting this to mean first _significant_ snowfall, since there's no way the first snow would fall in Boston in December

“Call it,” Dean mutters, refreshing his email for the third time in as many minutes. “C’mon, you morons, call it, _call it—”_

“Production is leaving,” Benny reports from around his computer screen, phone to his ear and mouth pulled away from the receiver. “Art and Design are leaving. _HR_ is leaving.”

“I’m leaving,” Victor says, already slinging his bag over his shoulder and pushing his chair in. “I’m parked on a snow route and about to get towed if I don’t. See you morons next week.”

“It’s Boston _,_ they’re not going to shut the firm down for two days,” Dean says distractedly, refreshing his inbox again.

“Maybe not, but if you think I’m coming in from New Milton while we’re digging out of _that_ ," Victor says, pointing, “you are out of your damn mind. Call me if it’s urgent, but a phonecall’s all you’re getting.”

He stalks out past the break room television he’d pointed at, the screen barely visible from Dean’s desk. WCVB Channel 5 has been broadcasting video of what’s left of New York state after Winter Storm Argos passed through. Most of the footage is whiteout blizzard conditions, some of it car wrecks and highways slowed to a crawl.

“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out,” Benny says, and under his breath adds, “ _coullion_.”

A new email appears, and Dean stands up so violently he sends his chair flying backwards. “Yes!” he says, arms up.

Benny throws the phone at its cradle and grabs for his mouse. “Hell yes!”

“Gentlemen,” Missouri calls over. “Please, curb your enthusiasm.”

“Can’t, snow day,” Dean says, logging off with two keystrokes. “Official-effing-snow day.”

“It’s early dismissal, honey,” she says, still typing away. “All one hour and forty-five minutes of it.”

“Can’t talk, bailing,” he says brightly, swiping his coat and bag off the desk next to him. “See ya!”

“Don’t die out there, brother,” Benny yells after him, and Dean heads straight for the stairs at the northeast corner of the building and trots all the way down to Castiel’s floor, where there are already people gathering in the corridors and chattering excitedly.

He blows into the accounting department with a wink for Ambriel’s owlish stare and Hester’s grumbled, “This _used_ to be a quiet place,” as he passes her. The cubicles down here never get any nicer but all the way in the back is Castiel’s cluttered and at this point cupboard of an office, the man himself turning towards the door as Dean comes up to lean on the jam.

“Hi there,” Dean says, and doesn’t care if his grin looks idiotic. They haven’t seen each other since that morning, and Castiel is wearing his glasses and a tired frown— marks of a rough day down in Finance. Still, the sight of him so incredibly good, like strong sun after days of rain, that Dean just drinks his fill while Castiel’s expression turns arch, then long-suffering.

“That was very fast,” he observes dryly. “I suppose you’ll want to leave as soon as possible.”

“That’s the idea, yeah,” Dean says. A horrific thought strikes him. “You’re not going to try to stay until five? Cas, we’ll get trapped by traffic even if the snow doesn’t get us and trust me, that car does not sleep two full-grown men.”

“No.” Castiel sighs, and slips the glasses off. “No, that would be foolish. Hold this,” he says, and proceeds to dump half the contents of his desk into a fat tote while Dean holds the handles up. He makes Dean carry it, too, and Dean’s not exaggerating the way the weight makes him stagger on the way to the elevators.

Well, only a little bit. And only because Hester and company are watching, and that audience always makes Castiel shoot him that flustered look of amusement and embarrassment.

“My life was much more predictable before I met you,” he muses as Dean unlocks the car for him, slipping inside while Dean heaves the tote into the back seat.

“Complaining?”

“Of course not,” Castiel says easily, then pats his pockets. “Wait, did I leave my—?”

Dean takes the glasses off the top of the binders stacked in the tote and leans forward to tap them on Castiel’s shoulder. “The real question here is where your scarf and gloves are,” he says severely.

“Oh,” Castiel says, caught in the act of rubbing his hands together. “Uh.”

“Jesus,” Dean mutters, and slams the door closed. He pulls the beautiful black merino from his own neck and hands it to Castiel as he climbs into the driver’s seat. The Impala warms up slower than most. “ _Don’t_ lose that.”

Castiel grabs for it eagerly. “I won’t.”

There’s about a fifty-fifty chance he will, even if they drive straight home and never leave the car. Dean watches him wind it around his neck three times and sigh blissfully, and thinks it’s probably worth the risk.

When they pull out of the parking garage, the first small flakes have already started falling. They’re not huge, but Dean has to put the windshield wipers on after just a few seconds, and ground, the buildings, even the air is turning pearly gray around them. Victor could have the right idea.

“How long do you think we’ll be driving?” Castiel asks, angling his head to look up at the glowering cloudcover. The streets are already swelling with cars, horns and sirens slightly deadened as the snow sweeps in.

“Not too long, once we get across the water,” Dean says, and turns into traffic going north.


	9. 8+9. Catching cold + Early gifting

Castiel’s neighborhood, if a loose sprawl of coastal mansions can even be called that, is of course too highbrow to have teenagers cruising around with plows strapped to their shitty trucks, looking for quick cash.

“There’s a company,” Castiel says, looking confused when Dean asks how the long driveway gets cleared. “Everyone uses them. I’ll see if they’re available tomorrow.”

They are, at a rate that makes Dean laugh before asking, “Wait, are you serious?” He asks that question a few more times, then hangs up, does some searching online and in the yellow pages, and ends up calling them back and taking the smugly noted late reservation fee with gritted teeth.

The company comes in the early blue dawn, while the snow is still falling, and scrapes half the gravel off the road surface and into the rounded drifts the sickle of the plow makes. They leave the courtyard untouched and Dean fuming from the top step when he comes to check on the job.

“This explains everything about the condition of that drive, you know,” he says to Castiel, who’s fully dressed and hovering anxiously behind him. Dean, who prides himself on being a realist, is still in his bathrobe.

“We’ll take the bus,” Castiel says, pushing past him. “There’s a 6:45 and a 7:30, you can still make the second and not be late.”

“I know you can telework, I’ve seen you do it,” Dean says in counterpoint, but Castiel is already stepping through the crumbly snow blown up against the door in the night and wading out into the courtyard.  Fresh flakes scour across the dune-like surface and he hunches, pulling his lapels closed with one hand.

“Where’s your scarf? Where’s _my_ scarf?” Dean wants to know, hands cupped around his mouth, but then the wind reaches him in a rush of powder and he hurriedly closes the door.

He checks in with the crew while he gets dressed— Benny, whose kids got a half-day, and Victor, cozily ensconced in New Milton. Charlie isn’t answering her cell, but the away message on her work address is a frowny face surrounded by unicode snowflakes; if she had enough time to put that up, she’s probably okay. He adds a headset to his flannel-lined jeans, heavy boots, and the bulky black parka the Queens crew had gotten him when he first moved to Massachusetts. It still looks new because it’s not exactly stylish, but it has a hood and it’s rated to negative twenty five degrees. He heads outside to begin clearing the front walk and a car-wide path from the garage to the gate.

A little after seven thirty and a dismal three feet from the garage door, Dean sees a figure approaching from the road and stops to catch his breath, slumped over his brand-new shovel. The orange Home Depot sticker is still on the handle.

The snow is tapering off a bit as the sun gets higher, but they’ve still got about two feet at the lowest points and Castiel’s pants are caked to the thigh. When he gets close enough, Dean can see he has snowflakes on his eyelashes and a hangdog expression.

“There’s no bus service to the Rockport line until further notice,” he relays grudgingly. “Which the local news neglected to mention.”

“Pretty sure they make an app for that,” Dean says, and smiles widely in the face of Castiel’s obvious disgust.

“Do we have another shovel?” he asks, looking at Dean’s minimal progress.

Dean shakes his head. “You’ll just have to stay inside and be warm. Tragedy!”

Castiel starts to turn away, then leans over the shovel to give Dean a chilly kiss. “I’ll be in the office,” he says, keeping his face close and a hand on Dean’s sleeve. “Will you be out there long?”

“Probably,” Dean admits, leaning in for another. His mouth is warm but the tip of his nose is like ice, and it makes Dean laugh softly and kiss that too.

“Stop that,” Castiel says, frowning a little when Dean draws back to see his face. “We could switch in a few minutes?”

“Nah, don’t worry about it,” Dean says. “Get inside, you’re freezing.”

“I’m _fine,”_ Castiel insists, but sneaks one more kiss under Dean’s hood and then pulls away to walk up the narrow strip of cleared flagstone Dean’s made for him.  He disappears into the house, and Dean turns back to the snow with a sigh.

The shoveling wasn’t exactly thrilling before Dean knew Cas was inside waiting for him, but it gets significantly less fun after that. It isn’t warm enough for the snow to be wet and heavy, but there’s still a lot of it and it still has weight. The frigid air numbs his face and hands and his back aches fiercely before he’s halfway across the courtyard. He listens to music until Benny calls, and they have a long discussion on how deployment on the Pierson holiday jewelry campaign is working. They try to patch Victor in and drop the call two times before it sticks.

 _“Sure is nice to be a condo owner,”_ Victor says when Dean has to stop and pant into the headset for a while, straightening up with a groan for sore muscles. _“How much does that pile of shingles cost to heat?”_

“Fuck you,” Dean says, heartfelt, and both of them laugh meanly.

The plow service has made a ridge of hard-packed snow up to Dean’s waist across the mouth of the gate, and the edges have solidified into ice since that morning. He has to break it into chunks and toss it off to the side, one heavy piece at a time, until Benny says, _“Not that I’m not enjoying the heavy breathin’, Dean, but it’s lunchtime and I gotta get_ les cabris _out the door.”_

 _“Yeah, and the Chew’s about to start,”_ Victor adds. _“Today’s special guest is— Sandra Lee? Oh, come on.”_

“Have fun with that,” Dean grunts, a little grumpy from the snow in his boots and resulting wet socks. He hangs up while Victor is still emoting at his television and Benny’s girls are protesting school. He doesn’t want to have to come back out here until tomorrow, so he makes himself trudge all the way down the drive to the road, clearing up the more egregious mistakes the snow removal service made on the way, before coming to the road and breaking down the ridge the municipal plow left too.

His phone rings again on way back, and Dean has to pull a glove off to answer. “Hello?”

 _“Where are you?”_ Castiel asks. _“I can’t see you from the house anymore_.”

“Aw, were you watching?” Dean teases, resting the shovel on his shoulder. “Just finishing up out here.” And not a moment too soon— he’s exhausted and a little lightheaded, like no breakfast and a couple hours of hard labor is bad or something. “Listen, do we have any canned soup?”

His loving husband promises him the finest of Campbell’s tomato and more, though the grilled cheese takes a bit longer after the remnants of Castiel’s first attempt set off the smoke alarm. Dean is pulling his boots off in the mudroom when he hears it, and tracks a bunch of melting snow into the kitchen just in time to see Castiel submerge the smoking pan and all its contents in the sink.

“Go sit,” Castiel says firmly, never one to be deterred by small setbacks. Then he gets a better look at Dean and says, “Go _change._ ”

“I’m fine,” Dean says automatically, even though now that the parka’s off the house is still twenty degrees too cold to be comfortable and his legs seem to have been replaced by blocks of ice. “I’ll be fine,” he amends under Castiel’s withering stare.

“Your lips are blue,” Castiel retorts, and abandons the steaming sink to push Dean up the stairs.

This is how Dean gets a fantasy fulfilled he didn’t even know he had: Castiel making snide remarks about exactly what kind of telework Dean is capable of while he gently strips him and pushes him into the bathroom, installing him in the grand old tub Dean has never used. The porcelain is _cold_ and Dean yelps a little as his back hits it, but Castiel turns the water hot enough to scald his toes and stays with him until it reaches his shoulders, monitoring the temperature with narrow-eyed diligence. The cuffs and front of his shirt go translucent where the water soaks in.

“Wash my hair?” Dean tries as he slowly uncurls from his pillbug position at the end of the tub, though he’s feeling less frisky and more sleepy as he warms up.

“Perhaps after you’ve eaten,” Castiel says, and brings him a tray of blazing hot soup and charred but edible sandwiches. The tray is tarnished, intricately molded silver, the dishcloth laid across it one of the Mickey Mouse ones Sam had sent him from Disneyland.

“You don’t have to stay,” Dean tells him as Castiel balances it across the foot of the tub, already grabbing for the spoon. “I can probably manage from here.”

“Yes, I do,” Castiel says. “Inias and Naomi are the only ones in the building downtown, and with no one else to bother they’ve been reviewing our future earnings projections. I’ve been running simulations for them all morning, and I refuse to run another if I can possibly avoid it.”

“Oh, yeah, talk accounting to me,” Dean says around half a gooey sandwich, and Castiel steals the other half in retaliation.

Friday morning, there’s a tall, wrapped box on the stoop with a velvet bow Dean recognizes from the attic draped across it. Castiel lets him walk right into it, and stays poker-faced as Dean shoots him questioning looks and slowly tears off the paper.

Inside is a monster snowblower, four feet wide with heated hand grips and an electric start. “Oh my God, it’s fucking gorgeous,” Dean says, petting its bright yellow side, and does not stop saying it until Castiel threatens to walk to the bus stop again if they don’t leave soon— Dean’s cue to turn and kiss him breathless.

Before he pulls the Impala out into the snow, Dean has the presence of mind to fish around under the seats and grab an unwrapped boxed set of hat, gloves and scarf. They aren’t particularly expensive, but they are very warm and a specific shade of blue. Castiel pulls everything on with gratifying enthusiasm.

“The next step is elastic in your sleeves, Ralphie,” Dean says as he shifts gears.

“I don’t understand that reference,” Castiel says, face buried in the scarf up to his nose.


	10. 10. Ice skating

Despite the fact that half of Suffolk County is still digging out after the storm, Charlie puts out an invitation for skating that weekend to anyone who wants to make the drive. The destination is advertised as a cute, rustic park upstate, and it draws an eclectic crowd— there’s Talbot people, and a crowd of Charlie’s theater kids, and a couple young artist types that she probably knows from school.

There’s also Anna, watching Castiel try to coax Dean onto the ice with a smile of honest enjoyment. Dean could be generous and assume she’s happy to see Cas and him outside of work, but thinks it’s probably at least partially because Dean’s making a complete ass of himself in public.

“You could hold my elbow,” Castiel says worriedly. “Or we could go sit down inside—”

“I can do this,” Dean says stubbornly, because goddamn it, he _knows_ how to skate. He killed at rollerblades and played hockey as a kid (okay, rarely), and he did just fine on the ice, as far as he remembers. “I was just… y’know, expecting something a little more Frog Pond.”

Castiel had looked so genuinely excited about skating, and it’s the only thing keeping Dean here now: barely off the ramp that leads out onto the _lake,_ the honest-to-God _frozen lake_ everyone else is merrily shooting around on, arms out wide and eyes fixed on the shiny blades strapped to his feet. It’s only December, and there are bubbles and sticks poking up through the ice this close to the shore, and oh God. He does not want to do this.

Anna comes to the middle of her graceful figure eight and turns smoothly in place, a pirouette worthy of any ballerina. “Come on, Dean! It’s much more fun once you’ve got a bit of space.”

She smiles brightly and Dean hates her a little. He manages a wobbly push, then another, while Castiel skates backwards in front of him with slow, fluid shifts from foot to foot. His arms aren’t even out for balance— more hovering out in front of him like he’s ready to catch Dean the second he stumbles. Which, for the record, Dean hasn’t done yet; possibly because he hasn’t gotten five feet off the dock.

Charlie swings by with about the same steadiness as Dean, but going much, much faster. “Isn’t this fun?” she yells, wavering dangerously. “Anna! You’re so good!”

“We had a lake like this, at our lodge in New Hampshire,” Castiel says distractedly, leaning closer as Dean makes another shaky push. “Anna and I spent winter breaks there for years.”

“Our instructor was a former Russian figure skater,” Anna adds, gliding along. “She had a house on the same lake.”

 _Bougie fucks_ , Charlie mouths behind them. Dean snorts and Castiel looks back over his shoulder at her, curious.

Of course, that’s the moment Dean’s skate slips. He overcorrects to keep from landing on his ass and ends up dropping painfully hard on his hands and knees. Charlie starts to laugh and capsizes herself, starfishing across the ice on her back.

“You know, they have skate aids at the front entrance,” Anna says, skating a literal circle around them. “They look like penguins and polar bears. If you’re having this much trouble, we could go get one?”

Dean hates her a _lot._ “I don’t want a frigging penguin,” he mutters as Castiel lets him use his clothes to pull himself up, staying rock-steady on his skates throughout. “How are you _doing_ that?”

“Ooo, I do!” Charlie says, still prone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. [Boston Commons Frog Pond](https://bostonfrogpond.com/winter-programs/pricing-season-passes/)  
> 2\. [Penguin skate aids](http://www.alexandanicitycenter.com/penguin-skate-aids)


	11. 11. Sitting/snuggling by the fireplace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> so the rating went up, how about that. chapter-specific warnings/tags: bottom!dean, orgasm delay, fingerfucking, s c h m o o p

Though he doesn’t mean to— has a to-do list a mile long that gets longer every time he notices a new crack in the plaster or a dead lightbulb stranded at the top of some ornate chandelier or another— Dean spends the majority of Sunday in the drafty east hall, trying get a fire going in the six-foot grate.

“You miserable cocksucking _sonofabitch,”_ he yells up the chimney as he yanks on the damper, and gets a faceful of flaking creosote for his troubles. The inspector had cleared all the fireplaces in the house as aged but unlikely to suffocate them or catch fire, which Dean should have realized didn’t guarantee the _mechanics_ actually worked worth a damn. He’s brushed everything out, used enough high-heat lubricant to slick a football field, and the fucking flue still acts like it’s welded in place. “I’ll brick you up and let Cas start with the sticks again, would that make you happy?”

“Very happy,” Castiel says from behind him, sitting cross-legged on a couch cushion stolen from the den. He’d appeared sometime in the second hour of Dean’s battle with the fireplace and just stayed, the way Nabokov or Rosie would if you sat in one place long enough— like it would be a pleasant surprise if you noticed and pet them, but they were certainly not there to seek it out. Of course not.

“You hear that, you useless piece of shit? It would make him _very happy,”_ Dean says savagely, and pulls at the damper handle with his entire weight behind it.

The handle drops slightly, then slowly grinds down with a piercing shriek of metal on metal. Dean plants a foot on the blackened back wall of the fireplace and leans into it until he can feel the breeze of their nice warm inside air being pulled out the chimney and into the wintry evening.

“ _Ha!_ Cas, it’s working!”

“Mm.” Castiel is also working, using Dean’s laptop to balance the company checkbooks or whatever. “Are you finished?”

Dean swings the handle back a forth a few more times, getting the lever nice and loose. “Come on, let me celebrate a little here.”

“Celebrate all you like,” Castiel says, typing. “When you’re satisfied, I need something.”

“Fire?” Dean asks hopefully. He’d brought in seven or eight split logs last night and picked up Duraflame starters at the grocery store for just this occasion, and he’s never been more in the mood to watch something burn.

Castiel looks up. “Does that mean you’re done?”

“Ugh, fine, I’m done,” Dean says, crawling out of the fireplace on his hands and knees. Castiel sets the laptop on the floor and pushes himself to his feet. He waits until Dean’s on his feet too, until he’s pulled off his gloves and dropped the disposable face mask on top of them, before he steps into Dean’s space.

“Cas?” Dean asks, and then Castiel grabs him with both hands and drags him into a full-body kiss, fingers in his hair, mouth sealing over his with a lush kind of violence, wet and furling and full of teeth.

“Holy _fuck_ ,” Dean gasps, and tries to reciprocate, but Castiel is drawing back with an intent expression and eyes heated enough to singe.

“Come upstairs with me,” he says, low and demanding, and well, when he puts it that way.

They don’t even get on the bed properly, Castiel walking Dean backwards into the mattress so that he falls sideways across it, then straddling his waist. He tries to pull Dean’s shirt over his head while Dean is trying to unbutton his pants, and Dean has to laugh at the frustrated sound he makes when stymied.

“We could do our own clothes?” he suggests breathlessly, still working on Castiel’s zipper. He’s wearing white boxers and straining obscenely against the fly, hips twitching into the mostly-accidental brushes of Dean’s fingers.

“You could let me do everything,” is Castiel’s growled counteroffer, and his mouth is back, biting hot and insistent along the line of Dean’s neck. “Let me, Dean. Please?”

Although the suggestion, the _please_ makes his stomach tremble and clench, Dean makes a show of considering it for a long moment, fingers sliding into Castiel’s pants, light and teasing.

“ _Dean_ .”

Dean laughs and lies back, folding his arms behind his head and grinning up at Castiel when the man eases away to see his face. “Do your worst,” he says to those storm-dark eyes. “Do whatever you want.”

What Castiel wants, Dean finds out too late, is him shaking, sweating, unable to keep his hands still and twisting them in the sheets instead. He wants Dean trying to stifle desperate moans and shocked noises before they leave his throat, and failing. He wants to watch Dean’s body arch while his heels drag restlessly, uselessly against the bedding. He wants to hear Dean’s voice go high and break in the middle of his name, wants him to keep his eyes open. He tells Dean what he wants, and Dean gives it to him, lets him have it, all of it.

“Cas, _fuck,_ I can’t—”

“Don’t come,” Castiel pleads, three fingers sinking in slowly, luxuriously where Dean’s so slick and open he can feel himself dripping. It’s mortifying and it’s making his entire body throb, blood-warm and oversensitive like a new bruise. “Just a little longer, I promise.”

His other hand wraps loosely around Dean’s cock, thumb rubbing leisurely up and down the underside and stroking precome back over his skin, almost soothing if it weren’t so fucking torturous. He kisses the protest out of Dean at the same unhurried pace, until the shuddery knot in Dean’s gut is painfully tight and he can’t stand it anymore. “I want,” Dean rasps against his cheek, thigh hitched urgently around Castiel’s hip, “Cas, please, I need—”

“I know,” Castiel whispers hoarsely. “Dean, you’re so beautiful.”

“‘M _not—_ oh, God,” Dean chokes out, arm vise-tight around Castiel’s shoulder as fingers slip free to guide the head of his cock into place. They’ve been at this for what feels like hours, the world dark and far away outside the windows, and there’s so little resistance that Castiel bottoms out in one inexorable push, Dean’s head tipping back against the bed in a soundless shout.

“Dean,” Castiel gasps, “Dean. Can I—?”

Dean can’t answer in words, can’t fucking speak, and when Castiel moves it’s too soon and jolts a horrible begging whine out of him, one he’s never heard himself make before. It feels too good, Castiel a warm, solid weight inside him, the deep stretch utterly sating in a visceral way. It’s almost too much.

 _“Dean,”_ Castiel says reverentially.

“Shut up, just,” Dean croaks, trying to turn his head away, but Castiel cups his hot face so gently and presses adoring kisses to his jaw, his ear as he rocks into him, slower this time.

“Love you,” he breathes, “oh, Dean, thank you.”

Dean wants to ask what he’s thanking him for, but he thinks he knows the answer; it only makes him flush harder. He lets Castiel kiss him instead, uncoordinated and messy as they start to move in earnest, and when he finally comes in a searing, overwhelming rush, he uses Castiel’s mouth to muffle anything incriminating.

They do eventually make a fire, after Castiel manages to drag the corduroy couch from the den into the library and down the east wing to the fireplace. Dean watches him use up most of their matches and all of their old newspaper from the cushions, feeling well-fucked and lazy with it.

“I think…” Castiel stares at the piled logs, crumpled paper and the starters slotted between them. “I think it’s working.”

“Yeah?” Dean says, rubbing a hand up his bare belly. Castiel catches the movement and stares, gaze going a little fixed.

In the next second, a small orange flame creeps over a middle log and starts to spread, but neither of them are looking.


	12. 12. Listening to / playing festive music

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm skipping to 12 before 11, because that one's not! cooperating! and at this rate we might have 13 before 11 too
> 
> bah humbug

Dean’s day starts with Missouri and the O’Jays, _Christmas Just Ain't Christmas Without the One You Love_ piping bright and cheery from the CD player at her desk. Dean picks it up in a whistle, and Missouri gives him a rare smile as he passes her.

In the creative directors’ bullpen, Victor turns to give him a look that could eviscerate at twenty paces. Dean’s at about step twenty-two. “I will pay you money,” he says, “cash money, to not bring that shit back here.”

“Bah, humbug?” Dean says with a smirk, dropping his bag on the table.

“Do you know what my mother’s house is like at this time of year?” Victor asks. “No, you do not, because I bet it’s all Frank Sinatra and Brenda fucking Lee uptown.”

“So that’s a no to _Rocking Around the Christmas Tree?”_ Dean asks innocently, holding up his phone. “Because I’ve got it right here—”

Victor throws a stapler, misses, and sends most of Benny’s color boards clattering to the floor. Benny swears at them both in paint-stripping Cajun and from the front of the room, Missouri turns up her music to drown him out. It’s gone from O’Jays to Otis Redding, and Victor groans and covers his ears.

At lunch, Dean drops by Art and Charlie is blasting Trans-Siberian Orchestra from the portable speaker hooked over her monitor; the speaker is bright green, and shaped like a dinosaur. She’s so deep in the zone she barely notices him, and bats at his hand when he waves it slowly in front of her eyes. “Come back in ten!” she yells above the music.

Dean, very familiar with Charlie’s elastic sense of time, goes across the room to where Kevin sits hunched over a tablet with enormous industrial headphones perched on his head. He jumps like a startled cat when Dean touches his shoulder, then pulls one side away from his head. If he’s listening to his own music, Dean can’t hear it over squealing electric guitars.

“Tell her to stop!” Kevin says immediately, pointing an accusatory finger at Charlie.

“Tell Kevin this is as close to classical music as he’s getting!” Charlie says, holding her stylus like a dagger.

“Would it kill you to listen to something less _violent?_ I’d even take Tschaikovsky!”

“This _is_ Tschaikovsky, you ass!”

At the end of the workday, Dean’s a little slow wrapping up and Castiel comes looking for him. There’s no one else in the office when a hand lands on his shoulder and squeezes. Dean doesn’t jump, just leans back into Castiel’s stomach as he finishes typing, then looks up.

“Hi,” he says. “Am I late?”

“A bit,” Castiel tells him, eyes soft. “What song is this?”

As soon as the office emptied out, Dean had put his phone on shuffle and propped it up on a project binder next to his keyboard. The song it’s playing now is mellow and melancholy, something about bells and peace on earth.

“Bing Crosby,” he says to Castiel. “Classic. You’re ready to go?”

At dinner, the radio tortures them for a few sets with hippopotamuses and Christmas shoes before four ascending notes on a piano announce the arrival of something better. Dean grins at Castiel on the other side of the kitchen, and Castiel pauses his massacre of the zucchini.

 _“When the bells all ring and the horns all blow, and the couples we know are fondly kissing,”_ Dean sings to him, _“Will I be with you or will I be among the missing?”_

Castiel points his knife at Dean. “We’re supposed to be cooking.”

 _“Maaaybe it’s much, too early in the gaaame,”_ Dean showboats, crossing the room, “ _Oh, but I thought I’d ask you just the same—”_

He catches Castiel around the waist, plucks the knife out of his hand and sets it down. Castiel lets him with a general air of bafflement, and squints suspiciously as Dean tangles their fingers and pulls him into his body. “Dean—”

 _“What are you doing New Year’s,”_ Dean croons, loving every exasperated line in Castiel’s face as he scowls at him,  _“New Year’s Eve?”_

“This is silly,” Castiel grumbles.

Dean tries to get a one-two-three, one-two-three rhythm going but they’re both painfully bad at it, bad enough it has him laughing too hard to properly sing the next few lines. _“Wonder whose arms will hold you,_ ow! God, Cas, _when it's exactly twelve o'clock that night?”_

Castiel is scowling at their feet, now, his hand on Dean’s arm suddenly rising to grab Dean’s wrist. “That’s not how it goes,” he mutters, lifting the hand to his shoulder. “I think, like this—”

And Castiel steps in, spins them in a neat circle, and fucking Fred Astaires his Ginger Rogers.

“Cas,” Dean manages not to squeak, led backwards and forwards and drawn in dizzying parabolas, the only things keeping him from stumbling Castiel’s firm grip at his waist and the hand he has fisted in Castiel’s shirt. “Holy shit, okay! I get it! You can waltz—”

“This song is not a waltz, Dean,” he says disapprovingly, and _dips_ him, leaving Dean clinging desperately to his shoulders. “At a bare minimum, it needs to be in three fourths time and strongly accented on the first beat. It is neither.”

“And yet, we’re dancing,” Dean says breathlessly as Castiel reels him in again, snug to his chest, and pulls him into another swing. It’s a miracle they haven’t hit any of the counters yet. “God. You’re fantastic.”

Whatever internal tempo Castiel’s keeping seems to slow at that, to more closely match the beat of Ella’s soulful question. Dean slowly lets his death grip on Castiel’s collar ease, and as Castiel turns them, again and again, he finds the thread of the lyrics again.

 _“Oh, but in case I stand one little chance,”_ he sings, _“here comes the jackpot question in advance.”_

Castiel’s lips curve, and he tugs Dean closer, Dean’s mouth near his ear.

 _“What are you doing New Year's, New Year's Eve?”_ Dean asks him, and feels the answer in Castiel’s face in his neck, a warm palm running up his spine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Remember, Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels." -- Bob Thaves, "Frank and Ernest", 1982
> 
> 1\. [O'Jays - Christmas Just Ain't Christmas without the One You Love](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-ffHxvTtMY)  
> 2\. [Brenda Lee - Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6xNuUEnh2g)  
> 3\. [Otis Redding - Merry Christmas Baby](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEyV8gnC4aQ)  
> 3\. [Trans-Siberian Orchestra - A Mad Russian's Christmas](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6P9xxJ4V7no)  
> 4\. [Bing Crosby - I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Q5LkxG-36w)  
> 5\. [Ella Fizgerald - What Are You Doing New Years Eve](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIcuK7wW8bU)
> 
> BONUS TERRIBLE SONGS:  
> \+ [Gayla Peevey - I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Dec9Jb_Ac4)  
> \+ [NewSong - Christmas Shoes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpkI7GW2V34)


	13. 13. Making snowmen

“You’re absolutely certain that’s steady?”

It isn’t, but Dean only has twenty more feet to go before he can get off the damn ladder and he hasn’t National Lampooned himself yet. He unclenches one hand from the top rung to wave in what he hopes is a carefree way, and says, “Look! Totally fine. You wanna pass me the last strand?”

Castiel dutifully leans over the iron roof cresting, the bundle of lights dangling from his fingers for a moment before he lets go and they slide down the shingles into Dean’s waiting hands in a shower of ice and snow. There had been a few times in the beginning where one or both of them missed the handoff, but they’ve been at this for hours now: Dean breaking in his new tree-scaling ladder by planting it in the cold mud at all corners of the house, Castiel tossing him lights from the ground, various windows, and now the freaking belvedere. Dean didn’t even know what a belvedere was until tonight.

Castiel has been putting up wreaths, too, on what looks like every outdoor light fixture they own. The red ribbons flutter wildly in the chilly wind coming off the water, but the effect is festive and very New England. Dean’s a recent enough transplant to notice and appreciate it, the way they look against cedar shingles and dark shutters.

There are other touches, garlands for the outside railings, a small stone reindeer for the stoop that made Rosie hiss and arch her back. Dean found electric candles to put in the windows, but there’s one window in the northwest corner visible from the outside and completely unfindable from indoors. It seems to exist halfway between an upstairs bedroom and the outside wall of the house, and neither of them can find a way to get at it.

An additional frustration: there’s no practical way to hang the whole house with lights. Castiel had proposed and Dean had agreed that the line of the first-floor roof, which ran around the perimeter of the courtyard from east wing to garage, was a good place to start. Dean had decided to go for the second-story dormers on his own while Castiel made disapproving noises from the dormant front beds, then reappeared minutes later on the roof above him.

Dean plugs the lights into the second-to-last strand and fishes in his pocket for another plastic clip to hook on the gutter. “I’m about ten minutes from done, here. You should go inside.”

Castiel, miraculously bescarved and gloved for once, shakes his head mulishly. “I’ll come down. _Do not_ fall while I’m gone,” he orders.

“Scout’s honor,” says Dean, whose closest brush with scouting has been the cookies.

Dean climbs down and moves the ladder two more times before he’s at the corner of the house, wedged between two overgrown juniper bushes and stretching to the limits of his balance.

“Careful!” Castiel calls up to him.

“I am the most careful,” Dean mutters as the ladder starts to tilt drunkenly. “Little more, c’mon—”

Dean doesn’t land in a bush because Castiel grabs the ladder and throws himself in the opposite direction, trampling a section of ivy as he does. Dean submits meekly to the shouting once he’s on the ground again, Castiel’s blue eyes furious in a face flushed with cold. Once he seems to be winding down, Dean dares to take his hands in his.

“Don’t you want to see the lights?” he asks, trying a smile.

“I want to throw that ladder and you with it into the _ocean_ ,” Castiel snaps, squeezing his fingers painfully tight. “That was incredibly irresponsible.”

“But before you drown me...?” Dean says, and Castiel glares fiercely but doesn’t resist Dean tugging him up towards the front door.

The master switch is not the one Dean thinks it is. He finds it eventually in the entryway coatroom, hidden by mothballed furs and a practically prehistoric vacuum cleaner.

“Well?” Castiel says, but the tension has mostly drained from his body. Dean risks a quick kiss, and he sighs deeply but allows it.

Dean smiles against his lips. “Let’s go check.”

It’s simple white lights— nothing red or green, hung in straight lines with no complicated patterns, but the warm gleam is soft and welcoming, casting the house in a dreamlike glow. A few rooms are lit but from here the windows are mostly dark, Dean’s dollar-store candles flickering merrily on the sills. Dean and Castiel stand in silence in the middle of the courtyard, gazing up at their house with something like wonder.

“Wow,” Dean says to the still night, breath rising in a plume of fog.

“Yes,” Castiel agrees quietly.

“Go team,” Dean says.

And then, “Are you sure you don't want that inflatable snowman?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. [National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Lampoon's_Christmas_Vacation)  
> 2\. [Belvedere!](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/0c/81/c4/0c81c448afae50425097b34f6786ca5e.jpg)


	14. 14. Snowball fight

Boston slowly accumulates another few inches throughout the day on Wednesday, just enough to put the fairytale glimmer back on the old, dirty snowscapes from the storm last week. It leaves the sky a soft white and quiets the streets, the city turning monochrome around them: black roads, white ground, grey stone.

Victor is entertaining potential clients in the Creative suite conference room, and loudly declaring that it’s a shame his team members haven’t joined them yet, but  _ when they do _ he’s  _ absolutely sure  _ they’ll have interesting insights into the particular challenges that come with advertising for  septic tank services . Benny and Dean look at the cracked door, look at each other, and arrive at the mutual, wordless conclusion that it’s a lovely day to get lunch outside the building. 

Their destination is the commons, where foodtrucks line up along the sidewalks even in the worst blizzards. There’s a good selection of them out today despite the snow: the obligatory lobster and barbeque, but also pho, arepas, ramen, bahn mi, crepes, and one particularly ballsy ice cream van.

“Not that one, brother,” Benny advises when Dean starts to veer towards a lime green Ethiopian truck. “Heard it took out the whole account services team last month.”   

“No, look,” Dean says, pointing. 

Benny squints at the truck. “What? The ice cream guy?”

“Not that,” Dean says, stepping off the path and into the snow-covered grass. “ _ Him." _

It’s not the thought of spicy goat wat drawing Dean in, though it sounds perfect for the weather. Parked next to the Ethiopian truck is Cookie Monstah, and standing with a noisy group of people clustered around the high window is a familiar figure in a baggy trenchcoat and steel blue scarf. Castiel isn’t facing Dean, head tilted back to study the menu while his coworkers— Dean recognizes Intern Alfie, that smug asshole Balthazar, and Hester—  take turns standing on tiptoe to order. He’s positioned just a little outside the fray, view unobscured from where Dean and Benny stand. 

Dean stoops down and comes up with a double handful of snow.

“You think that’s going to work out well?” Benny drawls.

“Yep,” Dean says cheerfully, compacting it into a nice little projectile. 

Benny shakes his head. “I’ll be in line at the satay truck if you need medical attention.”

“Thanks, buddy,” Dean says, and lets the snowball fly.

The hit is perfect— right between Castiel’s shoulder blades and hard enough to make an audible  _ whump _ , soft enough to explode into a million snowy fragments on impact. Castiel jumps and is already turning when a second snowball glances off his shoulder. His expression shifts from startled confusion to pure bewilderment when he sees Dean.

“Dean?” he asks. “What are you—?”

“Catch!” Dean says brightly and Castiel tries to dodge instead, knocking Balthazar sideways. Alfie takes half the hit, though the poor kid’s dressed in such a poofy coat he probably doesn’t feel a thing. 

“Dean!” Castiel yells, indignant now. “Don’t you dare!”

“Or you could throw something back!”

Castiel flings a clumsy handful of new snow that barely gets any airtime, and Dean’s next throw splashes across his chest and face. Dean blames the man’s squawk of outrage for the utterly debilitating laughter that keeps him bent over and unable to react quickly enough when Castiel makes it to him and immediately stuffs his snow-covered gloves down Dean’s coat and shirtcollar.

“I am here with my  _ office _ ,” he hisses while Dean yelps and tries to squirm free. “We are _ in public!” _

“It’s a park, Cas,  _ gah! _ Stop! There are kids out here with snowballs all the— _ ” _

“It’s a school day, and you are an  _ adult,”  _ Castiel says severely, but finally relents. 

Dean makes like a squirrel trying to get the snow out as quickly as possible, but ice is already dribbling down his back, ticklish and miserably cold. He asks in mock despair, “When did you get this cruel?”

“You will recall I have five older siblings,” Castiel says, dusting the last of the melting snow from his gloves. “I can be infinitely crueler, I assure you.”

“Please, truce,” Dean says with a laugh, pulling his lapels closed. “Jesus. If I buy you a cookie, will you forgive me?”

Castiel gives him a dark look, but it softens slightly under Dean’s smile. “I might,” he allows. “Provided the cookie is chocolate chip.”

“Not oatmeal raisin?”

The dark look returns and Dean puts his hands up. “Sorry, sorry. How about lunch on me, too?”

“That would increase your chances of forgiveness, yes,” Castiel says, and lets Dean steer him back towards the foodtrucks— away from the Ethiopian.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if foodtrucks hanging out around Boston Commons is a thing, but [Cookie Monstah](http://www.thecookiemonstah.com/) is


	15. 15. Lending their coat/scarf/hat to keep the other warm

“— but yeah, sorry,” Dean says, tucking the phone between his ear and shoulder as he keeps typing. “I think today is going to be a late one. I’ve got a consultation out in Roxbury and a holiday cocktail hour to drop in on closer to the city. Do you want to wait up? It’s cold out there.”

Calling it cold is a woeful understatement. The polar vortex that rippled across the Midwest in the middle of the week is blowing into Boston with dire results: high drifts, wind chills in the negative digits, and behind it the promise of an additional 3-5 inches of snow over the weekend. The Impala had given them a scare this morning by refusing to start for a few minutes. He doesn’t know if it’s the battery, oil, or fuel lines, and he’s not looking forward to crawling under the car tonight to find out. Winter outside the city is for the birds, especially for classic cars; Dean has a feeling he’s going to cave and take the old Jeep Bobby keeps trying to foist on them well before spring.

 _“I think in this instance I will wait for you,”_ Castiel says, though he sounds miffed about it. _“Heaven knows there’s enough to do here.”_

“I promise to be as quick as possible,” Dean says. “I need a few things from the store before it closes.”

_“The store? Why?”_

“You’re the one that made the list, sweetheart,” he says dryly. “Four kinds of cookies? Cupcakes? Croquembouche? Ringing any bells?”

 _“Oh! For the party tomorrow,”_ Castiel says, voice brightening considerably. _“Yes, please do.”_

They ring off and Dean’s just replacing the phone in its cradle when Benny’s hand appears above his computer screen, holding a coffee can that rattles as he shakes it. The printout taped to the side reads, I SOLEMNLY SWEAR I WILL NOT TAKE PERSONAL PHONECALLS IN MY OPEN OFFICE.

“It was a thirty-second conversation!” Dean protests.

“You called him sweetheart,” Benny counters. “I shouldn’t have to listen to that.”

“You said it _twice_ ,” Victor adds with a disgusted expression. “Pay up, asshole.”

“Just because the romance is gone from your lives doesn’t mean the rest of us are dead inside,” Dean grouses, but he pulls out his billfold and puts a five in. He’ll probably do at least that much damage before Christmas.

The mail comes every day at around eleven, but Dean’s gotten into the habit of checking it in the late afternoon.  Sometime after lunch, Missouri pushes a loaded cart into the bullpen. Dean barely notices her until she drops a long box on the desk next to him and sends loose paper and color tests flying.

“Special delivery,” she says, slapping down his mail on top of it. “Since this has been blocking my filing cabinet for hours.”

“What is it?” he asks, eyeing the box. “When did it come in?”

“With the rest of your junk. And you’re welcome,” Missouri says. She turns and walks away before he can say another word.

It’s a banker’s box, with the characteristic button and string closure and a sheet taped to the short side labeled INTER-DEPARTMENT DELIVERY.  The last entry is in Castiel’s copperplate printing, DEAN WINCHESTER, 4TH FLOOR CREATIVE. Is it strange that seeing his name in Cas’ handwriting makes him smile?

“What’s in the box?” Benny asks, craning his head around the monitor.

“None of your business,” Dean says, pushing the mail to the side so he can start unwinding the string.

“You’ve got that look on your face,” Victor says. “It’s probably sex toys.”

“It’s not _sex toys,”_ Dean says, and pulls the top open.

There they are, in a jumble of knit and wool: all of Dean’s loaned scarves, hats, gloves— some of which Dean didn’t even know he was missing. Is that his old _Burberry,_ with the moth-holes above the fringe? Oh God, it is. He doesn’t even remember the last time he wore it.

 _I keep forgetting to return these, and you weren’t wearing anything yesterday besides your coat,_ says a note on top of it all. _I was worried you’d run out. Please stay warm._

“Sickening,” Victor declares him in a grumble, crouched low over his keyboard.

“Shut the fuck up,” Dean says, beaming like an idiot.


	16. 16. Throwing/attending a holiday party

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we interrupt your regularly-scheduled fluff for some introspection

The many different tables dragged into Conference Room 1950 and its adjacent offices are labeled according to expected contribution size and the availability of outlets: hot food, cold food, hot drinks, cold drinks, baked goods, and Winchester.

Dean grabs the printed page with his name on it and crumples it into a little ball, looking over his shoulder to make sure Castiel made it all the way from the elevators with half his body weight in pastry hooked on his wrists. “Looks like we offload here,” he says, and dumps his own bags on the festive red tablecloth. Someone’s put cottony fake snow in artful clumps at the far corners, and Dean pushes it off to make way for the first of many platters.

Like she was just waiting for them, Charlie is immediately at his side and pawing through the selection, cracking a tupperware container to sneak a cookie. “You’re late!” she informs them with her mouth full of crumbs, powdered sugar streaking her chin and green sweater. “ _ Mmm  _ my God, that’s good. The party started, like, fifteen minutes ago. It’s almost time for speeches.”

“Sounds like we’re right on time then,” Dean says, turning to help Castiel heft the rest of the containers and a cupcake carrier onto the table. “We’ll go get the rest from the car and skip ‘em.”

“There’s more?”

Dean shrugs. “Couple cakes, some other stuff. We were up late.”

Charlie’s eyes go round. “There’s  _ cake?” _

“I made one of them,” Castiel says proudly. “It tastes very good.” Tastes very good, and looks like a pile of road apples. Dean lets him make the lie of omission, because he  _ is  _ getting better at it. The first few attempts of last night were… memorable.

“Can’t wait to try it!” Charlie says gleefully.

Which is when Bela Talbot comes around the corner and exclaims, “Dean Winchester?”

Dean is momentarily frozen in surprise, but feels almost like he should have expected this— old man Talbot’s getting on these days and doesn’t travel out of London that often, and his granddaughter has become something of a figurehead for him abroad. A Christmas party would be the perfect opportunity for her to press the flesh in the Boston offices. Yeah, he should have expected it. That doesn’t make it welcome.

“What a pleasant surprise,” she purrs, slinking up to join their group. She’s scintillating and jaw-droppingly gorgeous in a satiny dress and diamonds, slim heels so sharp they could kill a man. “How  _ are _ you, darling?”

“Oh, fine. Always wonderful to see you,” Dean lies, because he’s not an idiot and the woman has her grandfather wrapped around her little finger. He accepts the light hug and very continental air kisses she presses on him with the same superficial warmth, and when they part they smile knowingly at each other. They were always too alike to be friends, though they’d managed other things.

She settles back with a slim glass of champagne held artfully between three fingers, her head tilted to the side and her eyes gleaming. Castiel has gone stiff and silent beside Dean, which means someone probably  _ told  _ him and Dean needs to find an ass to kick.  

“You’re looking well,” she says, scanning him from head to heel in a fairly blatant assessment. “As always. Also, I’ve heard congratulations are in order,” and her eyes stray to Dean’s left. “I apologize for offering them so late, of course. I’d heard it was a... whirlwind courtship?”

Dean has a ready retort but suddenly Castiel is stepping up, hand coming to rest on Dean’s back. He has a faint, cool smile of his own to offer Bela, the kind of distant expression Dean’s never seen on his face before. 

“It’s good to make your acquaintance,” he says, offering a hand. “Castiel Milton.”

“And yours,” Bela says sweetly. “Bela Talbot. I believe I know your sister as well.”

If that was meant to provoke a reaction from Castiel, he shows no sign of noticing. “As she’s in media relations, I find that quite probable,” he says. “Anna works closely with our department directors.”

Dean leans into Castiel’s hand and the push of it firms up, holding him steady as a rock. Dean starts smile for real, then, and Castiel glances sideways at him with a slightly raised eyebrow. 

“You know, Bela, I am so sorry,” Dean says, not even looking at her. Castiel urges him minutely closer at the same time Dean angles his body into him, so that they move together, away from her. “We still need to grab some things from the car. We’ll see you after the speeches?”

“Oh, absolutely,” she coos, eyes narrowed a fraction. “We have so much to catch up on.  _ Do _ come find me once you’ve had the chance for a few drinks?”

And on that painfully obvious jab, she turns and glides away. 

“What a— gendered slur,” Charlie says, staring after her. “I mean, she smells incredible, but that is deeply uncool.”

“ _ Okay _ , we’re just going to ignore that happened and— car?” Dean asks Castiel, a little desperately. 

“Car,” Castiel agrees, and keeps his hand on Dean’s back the whole way down.

They miss most of the speeches, but come up when Naomi and some of the other department heads are waiting for Bela to finish talking about how her grandfather had founded the offices in the seventies and how proud he is it’s grown so much, and so on. Dean and Castiel finish drizzling reheated caramel over the croquembouche just in time for her to wrap it up with a very British, “Happy Christmas!” and then people move en mass into the conference room where the food is, and it turns out to be pretty easy to avoid her for the next few hours.

The party gets going in earnest. Castiel’s accounting crew forcibly remove him from Dean’s side to socialize with them for a while, and he drags all of them with him back to Dean for the white elephant gift exchange. Dean has a secret weapon this year: a portrait of John Quincy Adams’ face made entirely out of jelly beans. It’s six feet tall and almost as wide; he’d gotten it from kids in a girls and boys’ home they’d done pro-bono work for in Braintree. Castiel had seen it, because he’d needed help and two rolls of wrapping paper to cover it, and he settles into a back corner next to Dean with a conspiratorial smile.

Benny has made himself MC and is passing out numbers to be drawn randomly from a hat— “Remember, you can pick a new present to unwrap or steal someone else’s. The choice and the karmic consequences are up to you!”— and the ticket Dean gets is number thirty-six, Castiel nineteen. While they wait for their turns, Missouri picks a lumpy package that turns out to be a ceramic sad clown statue, Inias receives the gift of Yanni (the entire discography and poster), and Ambriel is the proud recipient of My Little Pony oven mitts. 

The crowd around the Christmas tree is all but hiccuping with laughter by the time they get to the teens, and then number fourteen says, “I want to see what’s in the big flat one,” and Jelly Belly Adams gets stolen three times in the next five numbers.

“New rule, only two steals per item,” Benny yells above the noise, and gets shouted down by the media relations reps, Anna included, clutching the portrait like it’s a Rembrandt. “Fine! Keep it! But after this it’s only two! Number nineteen, you’re out of luck.”

There’s a funky umbrella unwrapped early by one of the Production nerds Dean’s kind of hoping Castiel will go for. Umbrellas are one of the things he’s always forgetting, and something that eye-searingly orange will be tough to leave places. Dean tries to communicate this through gesture and elaborate use of eyebrows, but Castiel seems to think he’s being directed towards the motley pack of unopened presents under the twee little company tree. He ponders the stack, then grabs a small garment box from the middle of the pile. Next to Dean, Balthazar chokes on his mulled wine.

“What did you do,” Dean says flatly out of the corner of his mouth, watching as Castiel turns the box over, looking for a seam to rip from.

“ _ Nothing,  _ thank you. I found a unique gift, exactly as specified in the invitation,” Balthazar says, dabbing at the wine on his tie. “I’d only thought we all might be a bit more intoxicated by the time someone found it.”

Castiel finishes pulling the striped paper off and slides a finger under the tape on the lid. Dean asks, “And why would that matter?” 

“Because,” Balthazar starts, and then Castiel is opening the box. And crushing it closed.

Benny, who’d been looking over his shoulder, says,  _ “Pouyaille,  _ I thought we told all you to keep it wholesome, here. _ ” _

“Balthazar!” Castiel says accusingly, ears already a bright red and the rest of his face succumbing quickly. 

“What, why me?” Balthazar cries, and then everyone wants to know what’s in the box and Castiel won’t show them and finally Balthazar shouts, “It’s just underwear, you numpty, don’t be such a godawful prude!” and the partygoers draw their own conclusions.

By this time, Dean’s gone and gotten more eggnog and has a glass to pass to Castiel when he finally returns to their out-of-the-way corner by the coats. His face is still various shades of burgundy, and he’s carrying the garment box like it might be diseased. 

“You gonna show me?” Dean asks under his breath, smiling sideways at him, and Castiel shakes his head violently.

“I do hope they’re the crotchless type,” Bela says, appearing like a sleekly evil genie from behind a stack of outerwear. She has another glass in her hand, this one filled with what looks like rye whiskey, neat, and she comes to stand particularly close to Dean.

It doesn’t phase him. There’s a slightly glassy look in her eye that Dean recognizes from the tumultuous few months they’d spent dating, on and off, and he knows better than to engage. “Hey, better pay attention. They’re going through numbers pretty quickly.”

“Ah, yes. My number is twenty-two,” she says, holding it up. “I only hope I’ll be as lucky as dear Castiel.”

When neither of them responds, she purses her lips in mock disappointment. 

“Well, if you’re going to be like  _ that,” _ she says, and spins on one deadly heel. Within a few steps she’s finished the whiskey, picked up another, and has joined a group of people who immediately make room for her, charming smile as perfectly in place as her makeup. 

Seeing that, seeing her again... it makes Dean think of this same time last year, and the years before. He remembers spending the whole of December going from client party to client party and how easy it was to stay out at night, the drinking, the people. He’d consistently cratered the week after New Year’s— and if he’s honest, a few other times a year, because it wasn’t just a holiday problem— but even that was it’s own kind of tradition, a mild slap on the wrist from the universe that never lasted long enough to be a teaching moment. 

He misses it a little, and he doesn’t. He’s been asking Benny and Victor to take more of the client-hosted stuff this year, but he’s been Talbot Boston’s creative rep for too long to give it up in one go. Like the soiree he’d attended last night— pretty standard fare: a hotel lobby and an open bar that had graciously refilled Dean’s seltzer for the two hours he’d spent there, wondering why what used to be simple was now a such a chore. 

“Mr. Winchester, not dancing on the tables yet?” one of oldtimers had asked, the joke a thin veneer over judgement. Dean has a reputation and he knows it, knows what they expected. He’d still felt taken aback, being confronted so directly by the incongruity of who he was and who he’s trying to be. 

Strangely, though, once his first reaction had worn off… it didn’t matter. He’d laughed, made a quip about settling down in his old age, and gone home barely ten minutes later to destroy his kitchen by teaching his husband how to make merengue. It was an ultimately fruitless but very enjoyable rest of his evening, and he did it without regret or a single second thought. It feels a little bit miraculous; he doesn’t care about any of it, least of all what Bela Talbot thinks. Bela only knows what he used to be. Bela doesn’t have Cas. 

Dean doesn’t realize he’s been staring at her until Castiel touches his sleeve, and then he looks away as quickly as possible, meeting Castiel’s worried eyes.

“Is something the matter?” he asks quietly. He glances at Bela, effervescent and laughing, and looks back at Dean.

Shit. “I was just, you know. Thinking about how lucky I am to be here.”

Castiel’s eyes track back to Bela. “Yes, you are.”

“I mean—” Dean touches Castiel’s wrist, slides his fingers down to tangle with his. He doesn’t want there to be any misunderstanding here. “I’m not… I was just thinking how glad I am I’m not doing that anymore. I wasn’t—”

“Dean, I know,” Castiel says with emphasis, and then drops his eyes to the eggnog in Dean’s hand. “I know.”

And Dean understands what  _ he’s  _ trying to say. “This could be spiked,” Dean says weakly, because he feels like someone should. 

“It’s not,” Castiel says with perfect surety, and Dean feels— a lot of things, right then. But mostly he feels weirdly soft and shy, like a candyfloss high school crush has just kissed him, like that time in the parking lot as the storm rolled in, when Sam said,  _ Maybe you’re married to someone who wants to be married to you! _

“How about that,” Dean murmurs, looking down at their joined hands.

“Yes,” Castiel says, using them to steer Dean closer to him. He raises his chin a fraction, drops his eyes to Dean’s mouth—

— and a hideously bright flash goes off in their peripheral vision.

Both of them jump, and Dean turns to face Becky Rosen, office paparazza, slowly lowering a chunky, professional-grade camera from her face. 

“Becky,” Dean says in what he thinks is a reasonable tone.

Becky tries a laugh, but starts inching backwards. “Hi Dean! It’s, um, it’s just for the holiday newsletter! You know. I thought it’d be great to get a picture of office celebrities in—”

“Celebrities?” Castiel asks with a kind of dull horror.

“Give me the camera, Becky,” Dean says, holding out a hand.

Becky clutches it protectively to her chest. “It’s just a photo!”

“ _ Give me the camera,”  _ Dean says, much less reasonably, and when she runs and tries to hide in the ladies room Charlie is the one who goes in and grabs her. Becky makes strident pleas in the name of the free press and anti-censorship while Dean goes through the camera and deletes every single candid with them in it (there are a distressing number of them), until he comes to one where Balthazar has just taken an unattractively large bite of smoked salmon. 

“That’s one you should use,” Dean says, handing the camera back to her. “The  _ only  _ one. And if I see that thing again, whether it’s pointed at me or not, I’m confiscating it until spring.”

“Fascists!” Becky says tearfully, and scuttles off.

Dean, Charlie, and Castiel all take a moment to roll their eyes, and then rejoin the party only after loading up with uneven hunks of Castiel’s semi-failed cake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. [Road apples](http://www.dictionary.com/browse/road-apple)  
> 2\. [White elephant gift exchange](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_elephant_gift_exchange)  
> 3\. I am informed by exactly one (1) source that pouyaille = good grief in Cajun creole  
> 4\. Okay, so, I realize that an actual ad agency of this caliber MOST LIKELY would have a fancy party A) outside of their own damn building and B) where their employees didn't have to bring their own food like goddamn; however C) my only real job has been with the government and everything is potluck with the government because TAXPAYERS, and therefore D) I can not be held responsible for my inaccuracies
> 
> * * *
> 
> **_CB 12:25AM - Dean help_   
>  **   
>  **_CB 12:28 AM - CALL ME_   
>  **   
>  **_CB 12:31 AM - I’m trying to clean up and me and bela are the last people here and shes rly drunk, I dont know what to do_   
>  **   
>  **_CB 12:31 AM - she has a hotel but she cant give me the address she cant fucking remember it shes barely talking_   
>  **   
>  **_CB 12:32 AM - CALL ME CALL ME CALL ME_   
>  **   
>  ****  
>  _CB 12:46AM - I cant leave her here! what am I supposed to do???_   
>  ****  
>  _CB 01:13AM - shes getting sick fuck fuck fcuk_   
>  ****  
>  _CB 01:43AM - oh my god dean ANSWER YOUR FUCKING PHONE_   
>  ****  
>  _CB 02:52AM - well, here I am. on my floor in a blanket with a passed out evil ex in my bed_   
>  ****  
>  _CB 02:52AM - she barfed in the uber and I had to tip the guy like fifty bucks to get us all the way to my apartment_   
>  ****  
>  _CB 02:53AM - FIFTY BUCKS DEAN_   
>  ****  
>  _CB 02:53AM - her dress is toast and she lost a shoe somewhere, I gave her a shirt to wear but now I’m worried shell barf on that too_   
>  ****  
>  _CB 02:56AM - I had to google the recovery position :( :( :(_   
>  ****  
>  _CB 02:56AM - this is your fucking fault, shes not MY evil ex_   
>  ****  
>  _CB 03:01AM - CALL ME WHEN YOU GET THIS_   
> 


	17. 17. Kissing under the mistletoe

“I want you to know that I am doing this under duress,” Castiel says from just out of sight, through the open closet door. “I refuse to be held accountable.”

“Noted,” Dean says, lying on his stomach in bed with his head propped on his hand. “You’re totally blameless here.”

“Completely. A victim of my husband’s puerile imagination and bad taste.”

“Awful taste,” Dean agrees solemnly.

 _“Terrible_ taste,” Castiel mutters. There’s a few more seconds of rustling, then silence.

“Cas?”

Castiel exhales loudly. “I hope you’re satisfied,” he says, and steps out of the closet.

Dean can’t help it. He slaps a hand over his mouth, but it’s no use; the laugh escapes in a snorting burst through his fingers. “Sorry, sorry—”

“You can’t laugh!” Castiel says, immediately hunching over and cupping himself in a vain attempt to hide the crotch of the boxers, the letters there that read KISS ME UNDER THE MISTLETOE, the plastic bit of greenery clipped to his waistband. “This was your idea, I would have thrown them away!”

“No, it looks great,” Dean wheezes, actual tears squeezing out of his eyes. “Very— very Christmas-y, and—”

“I’m taking them off,” Castiel says, and Dean pushes himself up on his knees, holding out a hand.

“No, no, come here,” he says, still choking back laughter on every word. “Come on, please?”

Castiel fixes him with a red-cheeked glare, but slowly straightens and takes a step towards the bed. Dean snags him as soon as he’s within grabbing range, reeling him in so he can get out the worst of the chuckling with his head on his chest.

“Stop laughing,” Castiel mutters, hands coming up to brush through Dean’s hair. “You unbelievable ass.”

“Sorry,” Dean says, arms linked comfortably around his waist. He kisses Castiel’s sternum, then makes the mistake of looking down at the boxers and starting all over again. “Sorry, it’s just—”

“You love to make fun of me,” Castiel says on an aggrieved sigh. “Yes, I’m well aware.”

“I like making you laugh,” Dean says, lifting his head to meet his eyes. “I like laughing with you.”

“You might consider an alternative to _novelty underwear,”_ Castiel suggests with some exasperation. “Your sense of humor is just as bad as your taste.”

Dean grins. “Is that your way of telling me to blow you?”

Castiel opens his mouth, then seems to reconsider. “In the figurative sense, I would never be so crude. In the literal sense, I believe there was an implicit promise in asking me to wear these horrible things. Was there not?”

“Picked up on that, did you?” Dean says. “Why don’t you get up on the bed and find out.”

Castiel ends up plastered against the headboard, clutching it in a white-knuckled grip while Dean sucks him slow and wet through the cheap cotton of the boxers, inappropriate laughter sparking every time his nose brushes the mistletoe.

“Dean, take them _off,”_ Castiel pants. “Take them, ah—”

His demands get more frantic when Dean noses into the open fly and curls his tongue around the trapped head, pulling it into his mouth and free from the fabric. The hot weight of it feels good, the stretch in his jaw nothing compared to the silky rub of it against the insides of his cheeks, the roof of his mouth. Dean has his hands on Castiel’s thighs, holding him in place, but the push of his lips, his mouth working over tight, smooth skin makes Castiel squirm and jerk against Dean’s weight.

“Take— Dean, oh, Dean,” Castiel babbles, trying to draw his knees up. “Dean, if you don’t take these _idiotic_ things off I’ll—”

“Mmhm,” Dean says, eyes closed as he runs the flat of his tongue up Castiel’s dick before swallowing him down again.

Castiel’s body goes taut like a bowstring and Dean encourages him along, keeping his mouth soft and slick and letting him stutter out the last few thrusts unpinned before he starts coming. Castiel watches Dean lap the orgasm out of him with wide eyes and an open mouth, and while he’s boneless and agreeable after the fact Dean wrestles him out of the boxers and tosses them off the bed. No doubt they’ll be vanished with prejudice before Dean even wakes up, if he hasn’t managed to exhaust Castiel completely.

“You are an _ass,”_ Castiel mumbles, arm thrown over his eyes.

“You know it,” Dean yawns, leaning down to kiss his elbow.  

Castiel lifts his forearm slightly, blinking slowly. “Wait, are you—?”

“Sleepy,” Dean says, leaning over the bed to grab his pillow. Castiel had thrashed a bit at the end. “We were up until two last night with the oven, remember?”

“But—”

“Tomorrow,” Dean says firmly, feeling for the blankets they’d kicked to the foot of the bed. “We can do whatever you want, tomorrow.”


	18. 18. Watching holiday movies

A nagging sense of something out of place prods Dean towards wakefulness, discomfort registering before anything else. One side of his body has been bared to the chilly morning sunlight; it takes a moment for sleep-addled thoughts to turn from  _ that’s cold  _ and  _ where did the heat go?  _ to  _ pull the sheets up, genius. _

Dean marshals his mental forces and begins to feel blindly for the comforter. A repetitive sound, one he hadn’t pieced out from the rest of the room’s background noises until just then, stops abruptly.

“Dean?” Castiel asks from somewhere behind him. “Are you awake?”

“Hmph,” Dean says, and keeps patting over the jumbled mess of bedding. He’ll find the edge of the comforter soon. Any second now. 

“Dean?”

“No,” Dean says helpfully.

“I see,” Castiel says. “Would you like me to rearrange the blankets?”

“... yes.”

“All right.” 

The bed moves next to Dean, dipping and then rising as Castiel leaves it. Cas is always wandering away somewhere on mornings like this, and it’s just not fair. “Come back,” Dean complains, and then the covers are jerked off him. “Cas!”

“Shush,” Castiel tells him, and the first layer drops back over his naked body. It’s not nearly enough, but the second and third layer follow, until some of that drowsy warmth of just-waking-up has seeped back in and Dean can relax into it.  

He rolls instinctively towards Castiel as the man climbs back into bed, one arm already extended and ready to pull him in. Dean settles with his head on Castiel’s shoulder, soaking in the added heat with a low hum of appreciation. Castiel strokes his hair once, then shifts to grab something from the nightstand. He situates it against his knees, and the repetitive noise starts up again.

Dean cracks an eye open, and as soon as he sees the green Excel logo and Castiel’s fingers on the laptop keyboard he makes a complaining noise and throws an arm over Castiel’s chest in protest. “ _ No.” _

“Dean,” Castiel says patiently, “if you’re going to go back to sleep, I want to finish a few things before Monday.” 

“I’m awake,” Dean says. 

“Are you.”

“Super awake,” Dean says, yawning hugely. “Mm.” 

“Because we do have unfinished business from last night,” Castiel says conversationally. 

“Do we?” Dean asks, which is a stupid question and earns him the world’s most excruciatingly methodical handjob, the space under the sheets going languorous and molten with heat. Castiel spends an inordinate amount of time sucking dark marks on his neck and chest, nipples plucked and pinched in his teeth while Dean moans and his palm goes slick, slicker with Dean’s precome until Dean finally makes a fist in his hair and growls, “Get your dick out or I swear to  _ God—” _

Changing the bedding becomes a necessity after that, and while Dean’s at it he grabs his own laptop and the cord to bring into bed with them. “I’m not watching any claymation reindeer,” Dean says, taking control of the touchpad immediately while they resettle together, under pale winter sun and the smell of dryer sheets. “John McClane or bust.”

“Yipee ki yay,” Castiel says, surprising the hell out of Dean, and adds, “I’m not a complete recluse, you know,” when he asks where he’d seen it. “It plays on late night television quite frequently this time of year.”

“You know the full phrase is ‘yipee ki yay motherfucker,’ right?”

“Of course it is,” Castiel says, sounding deeply disappointed in humanity. “Well, play away.” 

They’re halfway through the second one— grenades tossed, hilariously green-screened ejector seat episode underway, McClane dying harder than ever—  when Dean gives in to drooping eyelids and rests his head against Castiel’s. “Hey. You still watching?”

Castiel doesn’t respond. Dean would have to pull away to see his face, but when he turns off the laptop their reflections in the black screen show him exactly what he expects: Castiel is out like a light. 

“I’ll make a lazy ass out of you yet,” Dean says affectionately. He sets the laptop on the far side of the bed and grabs the comforter to pull up to their chins, sneaking a kiss to Castiel’s slack lips before he shuts his eyes again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. [Yipee ki yay motherfucker](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk8skZQC8po)


End file.
